The Demon's Seal
by Dragon-Ninjagirl
Summary: And ancient seal gets broken, and evil powers come free. But soon Landmark City and the world begin to become one with the world of the fiends. Everyone becomes a weakwilled slave of Naran, the emperor of the demons. Can the Alpha Teens stop his plans?
1. The Seal

The seal

It was a cold and cloudy day. It didn´t rain, but thick and grey clouds were all over the sky and made the mood of everyone worse. Even though it was summer there was no sun in sight. The temperature was warm, but the clouds looked as if it would rain each second.

Mr Herris, a guard of the Landmark City History Museum, waited for some new exhibits for the Chinese exhibition that should open the next day. His duty was it to take care of the exhibits and to stay sure they were safe. Finally a black van stopped in front of the entrance for the staff which laid on the other side of the building. A man in a brown uniform got out of the car and opened the loading space that was locked with two locks and a retina-scanner. After opening the loading space Mr Herris came over to him to unload the van.

"Good morning, Joe. What do you have this time?", he asked the man in the brown uniform.

"Be careful with this things. They´re not as value as the exhibits I brought you yesterday, but they are important", explained Joe and gave Mr Herris a large and heavy box. He brought the box into the museum and put it next to the door to the exhibition. Then he went back to the van to get the next box. Half an hour later the loading space of the van was empty. Joe put off his cap because he sweated.

"Okay, George, have fun with the new exhibits and be careful, they´ll kill me if they get broken", warned Joe and sat into the van. He started the motor. Then he drove away and left George Herris alone with the new exhibits. With a sigh he went into the museum and closed the door for the staff. After locking it he went to the boxes and got a look at the things in them. Now it was his duty to put them on their right places in the exhibition until tomorrow.

The whole afternoon he took care of value things, old teapots, lances, masks, ornaments and one or two shields. In the last box was just one thing left. It was a necklace with a big, darkgreen pendant that was round like a circle. On this circle was chinese writing and some small pictures. Interesting for people who liked funny ornaments. But George was tired and just wanted to go home. He took the necklace and looked at the description of it.

"Seal of the demon", he read quietly. But then he just shrugged his shoulders, hurried through the corridors and wanted to put it on its right place in the hall for ornament. But unfortunately he fell over his own feet and landed hardly on the ground. The seal flew out of his hands and through the air. With a terrible sound of breaking glass it broke into a lot of separate pieces.

George looked up and cursed. He hurried over to the broken seal and wanted to pick up the pieces. But then the pieces of the seal started to glow green and green smoke rose into the air. George took scared a few steps backwards and stared at the seal. The smoke rose higher into the air until it formed a ball of green smoke. The smoke became more and more and a pair of red glowing eyes appeared in it.

The guards eyes widened. Slowly he walked backwards. But he fell because of his panic onto the ground. He sweated and tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. Now he cursed in his mind that he wanted to work this day. Why not another day? Why not at friday or monday? No, he had to work on days like this one.

_Oh no_, was all he could think before the green smoke and the red glowing eyes in it moved fast towards him.

**Sorry for the short first chapter, the others will be longer ; ) I hope you´ll like this story! Review, please!**


	2. The Demon's Power

The Demon´s Power

Axel, Lioness and Hawk waited in the garage for the rest of their team. Axel leaned against the slamma, Lioness sat on the passenger´s seat with crossed arms and seemed to be in thoughts while Hawk checked his hair in a mirror. Finally King and Shark came down the stairs. King ate the rest of his sandwich and got into the slamma. Shark and Hawk followed him, Axel sat on the driver´s seat.

"Why did it take so long?", he asked as he started the motor and drove out of the garage.

"King wanted to eat something before we leave", explained Shark and sighed. "Typical, dude", he added quietly.

"What did you say?", asked King challenging and looked at Shark who just shook his head and said, "Nothing!" Lioness smirked and looked out of the window. King and Shark argued a lot, but not as often as King did with Hawk. Nearly every day he was mad at the guy because he had done something silly. Nevertheless they were good friends and worked together in serious situations.

The big houses and skyscrapers passed very fast. But in the near of the museum were traffic lights and Axel had to stop. "We´re too late", he noticed as he looked at his watch. The others shrugged their shoulders. "If he´s asking we can tell him King was eating everything in our fridge. And the fridge was very full, so it took a long time", joked Hawk. But he stopped grinning as King looked at him angry.

Axel looked out of the window. There was the museum of Landmark City. A large and white building with many large windows. Suddenly he noticed a green light that came through the windows. At once the sky seemed to become darker than it was. The clouds were nearly black now, some lightnings flashed and loud thunder growled. The wind blew harder than before, and the trees nearly lost their leaves because of the wind. It started to rain. The rain pattered hardly onto the windows of the slamma so that the windshield wiper were useless.

"I can´t see anything!", cursed Axel and drove very slowly and carefully as the traffic lights showed green. But he wasn´t the only one. Every car on the streets drove much slowlier than normal.

"Where did this thunderstorm come from?", asked King and looked at the sky. But he couldn´t see anything because the rain ran down the windows like a waterfall. Another lightning flashed and at once thunder growled. "It´s exactly over us", said Lioness.

"That´s creepy, guys", said Shark and looked at the sky, too, as another lightning flashed brightly.

"And normally impossible. A thunderstorm can´t come without being seen and at once. It would have been seen or noticed if there were thunder and lightnings. But this one appeared out of nowhere", explained King.

Suddenly another lightning flashed and hit the road in front of them. Axel alarmed and turned the steering wheel into another direction. The slamma slipped over the wet street and whirled around. Axel tried to get the control back, but couldn´t. The slamma slipped towards the shore which was to their right. They broke through a fence and fell down the one or two metre high cliffs. The five teens screamed as their car crashed into the sand.

"Are...you all okay?", asked Axel some moments later. He got no answer. His friends had passed out. The slamma stood on its right side. Axel tried to open his seat belt, but couldn´t. He felt dizzy and his view was blurry. Finally he could open the seat belt. But he fell out of his seat and onto the passenger´s one. There he passed out.

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George couldn´t move. He laid there on the ground and stared at the green cloud with the red eyes. Sweat was on his forehead and he shook because he was scared. In the last fifteen years as a guard he had never seen something like that before. With widened eyes he stared at the thing in front of him as it formed something. The cloud changed its color and turned darkblue and purple.

Then it began to change more. First two arms appeared, then two legs and wings and a tail. After this transform the creature looked at the guard. It had darkblue and nearly purple, scaly skin. It had a face like a lizard. Its ears were very long, its eyes were red and looked now at the guard. His body looked like the body of a man, but the skin was darkblue or purple. It had no fingernails, but claws. Just like its feet. They looked like the feet of a dinosaur. It spread its leathern wings and moved its tail, which was a thin one with an end that looked like an arrowhead, fore- and backwards.

"So, what are you for a weak creature?", it said with a deep and growling voice as it took a step forewards.

George couldn´t say anything. He was too shocked. He tried to open his mouth and scream for help, but no tone appeared. His voice seemed to be gone. "Wha-What are y- you?", he finally asked, but his voice shook and he just stuttered.

The creature grinned and showed its sharp teeth. "You really don´t know who I am? I´m Naran, the emperor of all devils and demons and I´m the defeater of the legendary three dragons of the old Chinese emperor Xi Lun! Now, after 5000 years I can plan my vengeance on all mankind! They will pay for that they put me into this silly seal!"

The demon rose his arms, spread his wings and rose his head to the ceiling. "Powers of the wind, the thunder and the lightning, listen to me! Your emperor is back, so follow my orders and open the gate to the world of the demons!" Outside the sky darkened and suddenly lightnigs flashed and thunder growled. Some lightnings hit the street or some buildings and the hard rain pattered agains the large windows. George could hear the sound of screeching tires on the road, then a loud crash. It sounded like an accident.

"Ah! I can feel my old power is coming back to me! Good...now I can make everyone in the world to my slaves! And I´ll begin with this city...You! Tell me the name of this town and the date!", he ordered George.

"Ehm...We-We´re in Landmark City...Today is-is the-the 19th June..."

"I see...I´m in the twentyfirst century. Everything´s so new and full of technic. Perfect. People won´t expect my arrival and they won´t know about my powers!" He laughed evilly and formed a green glowing ball in his hands. The ball grew and grew until the demon sent it towards the ceiling. It went through the roof and rose higher and higher. As it was high at the sky it began to grow and within seconds the whole city has been filled with the green smoke of the ball. After doing its work it disappeared.

Naran grinned. "So, everyone who stayed in contact with the smoke is my slave now, his soul belongs me. And you´re looking like the pefect servant", said the demon. He bent over to the scared guard and lifted his head with his claws. Shocked he looked into the glowing red eyes of the creature. The eyes of the guard widened and he breathed in the green gas Naran let appear just with a wave of his hand.

Then George fell to the ground and didn´t move. Naran grinned and moved his tail fore- and backwards. The guard´s body began to shake hardly now and he sweated.

"Now, come on, my weak-willed slave! We have to do some changes in my new empire", said Naran and George stood up. His eyes were just white and had no color. Like a zombie he followed his new master who walked over to a window.

"Hm...my power can´t reach everyone in this city." He crossed his arms behind his back and folded his wings. He looked out of the window. Cars stood in the middle of the streets and didn´t move. People who sat in their cars just stared like zombies into nowhere and seemed to wait for the orders of the demon. "Everyone who is asleep now or who is beneath the ground has still his own will. But it´s about midday and everyone is awake, especially in a big and busy town like this one. The only ones who could be asleep are ill persons or children. But they won´t stop me", explained Naran.

"Now I´ll collect my powers to fetch one demon after one out of their world to help me ruling this world. This world is much better, good weather and a lot of space. Great." He giggled with his deep voice and imagined what he should do at first.

"Maybe", he began to tell his slave, "Maybe I should separate those human-beings. People who are strong and who can work good will be my future slaves and those ones who still have their own will or who are too weak will be my meal for the next days. Slave, organize a very, very large hall where I can collect them", he ordered. The guard nodded and disappeared to search the perfect hall for his master.

"In some time", he said to himself, "will every soul in this city belong me, and none will stop me!" Naran grinned evilly and watched the weak-willed people outside the museum.

**Thanks for reading and pls review, dudes:P Maybe a little strange with that fiends...hope you don´t mind. If you don´t like that genre, don´t continue reading this story..I just warn you P**


	3. Discoveries

Discoveries

Lioness woke up. She looked at her watch and saw that it was late afternoon. She was still in the slamma and laid in her seat. The car laid on its right side and she was pressed agains the door. She turned around and saw someone laid on her. It was Axel, he was still consciousless. She could lose her her seatbelt and tried to wake him up. "Hey, Axel! Wake up! Come on, wake up!" She grabbed his shoulders and shook him until he opened his eyes and looked into hers.

"Li?" Quickly he sprang away from her, but his head hit the roof of the slamma. He winced and rubbed his head. She didn´t notice that he blushed a little. "What happened?", he asked confused and looked around. On the bank behind them laid King, Hawk and Shark, they were still not awake.

"I don´t know, we had an accident", she replied and looked out of the broken window. "Are you hurt?", she asked after a moment of silence.

"No, I´m okay. And you?"

She smiled. "I´m okay, too. The others look as if they didn´t get injured", she noticed.

"We should get out of here", said Axel and opened the door. He climbed out of the slamma and helped Lioness. Then he opened the other door and woke the three guys up. First of all they were confused. The sun shined again and it seemed as if nothing had happened. Exept the trashed slamma. They climbed out of it and tried to remember what had happened.

"We should call Garrett", said King. "But he won´t like it that we trashed the slamma."

"So what? I mean, we´re trashing everything, but he´s not mad at us. He always says he´s going to repair everything we trashed. This guy is great", smiled Shark.

They climbed the cliffs and stood next to the street again. What they saw, shocked them. Cars stood in the middle of the road, but didn´t drive. They were all empty. Moreover none was on the streets, no people were in sight. Everything was empty. Axel phoned Garrett while the five teens stood in the middle of the street, looking confused at the empty streets and cars.

"Garrett? Hey, I-"

"Axel? Is that you? Where are you?", came the nervous and scared answer.

"We´re in the near of the museum", he replied and turned the speaker of his mobile phone on, so his friends could hear what Garrett told them.

"Go away there as fast as you can! Come to Lee industries and take the stairs to the third basement. Not the lift, that´s important! And be careful, you mustn´t being seen!", he explained fast.

"But what´s up?", asked Lioness.

"I´ll explain it to you later, but now come here and don´t be seen!", said Garrett quickly and ended the call. Axel put his mobile phone back into his pocket and looked at his friends.

"I don´t know why he is so different, but we should do what he says", suggested King.

"The slamma is trashed, we have to walk. That´s an advantage, none will see us if we use the dark lanes and ways behind the houses", mentioned Lioness. They all nodded. "Does anyone know the shortest way?"

"I know one", said Shark and grinned. "Through the canalisation."

Hawk looked at him in disgust. "Don´t you think that Garrett is just a little...paranoid? I mean, who should see us now, here isn´t anyone! And it´s dirty down there", he said and hoped his friends knew another way.

"But if Garrett means something is up, I believe him", said Axel. "We should use Shark´s way." Lioness and King nodded. Now Hawk looked angry at Axel. "Okay, but I´ll get my revenge for this", he said annoyed and offended, but Axel just smiled. "Of course."

They followed Shark through the canalisation. He knew the way very well, sometimes they turned right and then left again. It was very dark, so they used the lights of their t.a.g. blasters. After fifteen minutes of walking through the canalisation they reached a ladder. Shark climbed it and his friends followed him. As they stood on the street again they noticed they stood in front of Lee industries.

"We can´t go farther, there are thick walls and the tunnels and there", said Shark as they walked towards the main entrance.

"I don´t want to know why you know this", replied King. Shark smiled.

In the hall they found none. Everything laid on the ground as if it was left behind in the middle of the work. The teens headed for the stairs and went downstairs. At the third basement they stood in front of a large door. "And now?", asked Shark.

"We should knock", replied Hawk and tried it. But the door didn´t open. "Okay, what then?"

"What about _sesam open_?", asked Shark jokingly. Then suddenly the door opened. Hawk looked surprised. "You see?", smirked Shark and followed the others through the door. There was a large corridor and to the left and to the right were doors. They didn´t know which door they should go through, so they tried the one at the end of the corridor.

And they were right, Garrett was in this small room and sat in front of three computers. The first screen showed a map of Landmark City, the second one showed a lot of numbers and dates and so on. On the third screen was just the screensaver. Garrett winced as he heard the door opening and he whirled around. Relieved that he saw the teens he sighed.

"Garrett, what´s up?", asked Lioness worried.

"Didn´t you notice everyone in town disappeared?", he asked nervously.

"Yeah, we didn´t meet anyone after our crash...", replied Hawk.

"Which crash? Well, that doesn´t matter now. Here, look at this wall, I´ll show you what´s wrong", said Garrett, typed something on the keyboard of one computer and turned on the beamer. The map of Landmark City appeared on the wall and they looked at it.

"Okay, this is a normal map. But if I use another map that shows magnetic fields..." He typed something and the same map appeared, but this time some places were marked with yellow. One place was very big and marked with red.

"The yellow places are those which have a natural magnetic fields, nothing to worry about. But the red place is different. There is much more magnetic energy than in the last hundred years together. What you see here are pictures that a satellite took half an hour ago. Here, look at this map, it has been taken by a special satellite with heat sensors. Everything that´s warmer than 25°C is shown in orange, something hotter, like humans, is red", explained Garrett and typed again.

Now the same map appeared again, but it was colored in blue mostly. Some lonely points on the map were red or orange, but the most red and orange ones were on one place. It was the same place with most of the magnetic energy.

"You mean those red points are human beings?", asked Lioness.

"Yes, but we aren´t shown on this map because we´re too deep under the ground."

"Where is this place with all these red points?", asked King.

"I located this. An hour ago they were in the museum, but now they are in the mess halls. And everyone else in Landmark City seems to be there, too. Exept some people, I think about twohundred or so. Most of them are ill ones in hospitals or children", explained Garrett and clicked on some files on the screen of his computer. The beamer showed now pictures taken by supervision cameras on the streets and in public buildings.

"This is one hall of the Landmark City Mess Halls. Look." A video of the very big hall was shown. A lot of people were in there, they stood in rows like soldiers and didn´t move. In front of them stood something. The camera zoomed. There stood something that had the body of a man, darkblue or purple skin, wings like a bat, long ears, claws and a tail like a devil.

"What is that?", they asked all together. Garrett just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "I don´t know, but have a look at this."

Another video appeared. They could see the lizard-like face of this creature now. It said something and a man stepped out of the row towards the creature. The creature was maybe a metre bigger than the man. It picked up the man on his shirt and lifted him, so it could look into his eyes. The man didn´t move. Then he opened his mouth and his eyes widened as a small, silver and white glowing ball floated out of his mouth. The lizard swallowed the small ball and dropped the man who didn´t move.

"Do you understand now why I´m that scared? This thing seemed to turn everone in this city into weak-willed slaves who listen to each of its orders. And if it does something with people like this man they don´t stand up anymore. Some of the men take them away, I don´t know what they´re doing with them", said Garrett.

The teens stood there with widened eyes. "That...is really creepy", said Shark after a while of silence.

"That´s impossible! I mean, that thing can´t exist and it couldn´t do what it did! What´s up here?", asked King confused.

"We could find it out!", said Axel.

"What do you mean?", asked Lioness half scared, half distrustful. She didn´t like Axel´s idea.

"Maybe we could go to the mess halls and have a look at the happenings there to get more information", he replied.

"Are you sure?", she asked worried. If she was honest she liked Axel a lot, maybe he was more for her than just a friend. But his idea sounded very dangerous, even though Lioness was a curageous girl. After seeing the videos she was scared. Now she looked deeply into Axel´s eyes and he just nodded. She could see that he was serious. Then Lioness sighed.

"I´ll come with you", she said.

"And we will, too!", said King.

"Okay, guys, go if you want, but be careful. I can see you on the videos of the supervision cameras. Maybe I can help you if something is up", said Garrett as the five teens turned to go. They decided to walk because using rides would maybe catch the attention of the creature. The mess halls were not very far away from Lee industries, just ten minutes walking. They hid behind a wall and looked at the large buildings that looked as normal as ever in the darkness of the night. The street lights threw a creepy light onto them.

**Review, please!**


	4. The Emperor of Demons

The Emperor of Demons and Fiends

"I think we should go back", said Hawk scared as he looked through the windows of the mess hall. They were now next to the building and watched everything through the windows. They hid in some bushes.

"Oh come on! We´ll take just one look at this thing and then we´ll disappear as if nothing has happened", replied Shark.

"But what if this thing catches us? What will it do with us?", asked Hawk.

"He´s right. After the things that happened to that man? I mean, what will happen if this creature sees us?", added King.

"If you want you can stay here. I think it´s a little too dangerous for all of us to get in", said Axel after a while and headed for the entrance.

"You don´t really want to go through the main entrance, do you?", asked Lioness and shook her head. Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Suggest something else", he said.

"Over the roof", she replied shortly and walked over to him. Then she turned around to her friends. "Does anyone else want to come with us?" The guys shook their heads.

"I´ll stay here...to keep watch", said Hawk. "And I´ll look after him", interrupted Shark. King shrugged his shoulders. "But come back as fast as you can. I´ll take care of these two guys", he just said. Axel and Lioness switched a look and left.

"Do you know any way to get onto the roof?", he asked her while she walked around the building.

"There´s a ladder on the other side...and I guess fire stairs, too. But the ladder goes straight to the roof, so we should use it", she explained and looked carefully around the corner. As she saw none she continued sneaking along the wall. Axel walked behind her. Now a little fear overcame him. It was a strange feeling in his belly and he didn´t really know if it was fear or another feeling. He tried to ignore it and followed Lioness.

They reached the ladder and she started climbing. He followed her and was amazed how long this ladder was. Moments later they were on top of the mess hall. Lioness gave him a signal and sneaked carefully over to a window in the roof. She knelt down to look through the half open window. He knelt down next to her. They both looked through the window and watched the creature giving the "slaves" orders.

"Master Naran", said one man to the creature and bowed to him after he got work to do. "Thanks a lot. It´s a pleasure for us to work for you!" Naran, the creature, just nodded to the man and sent him away. Lioness and Axel looked at each other in surprise. "He is not serious...is he?", she asked quietly because she was afraid Naran could hear her through the open window.

The two looked through the window again and saw how Naran gave the men and women in the large mess hall work. Some of them got his servants, other ones had to do different things for him. After ten minutes of always seeing the same Axel felt a little bored. He glanced at Lioness. Somehow he noticed only now her soft, brown hair and her beautiful green-golden eyes.

She looked up as she noticed his look on her. Quickly he looked away and felt a heat coming into his face. He blushed a little. Lioness looked through the window again. "Let´s get closer", he said suddenly. Lioness looked up. "Err...I mean to this creature", he added quickly and rubbed the back of his neck embarassed. Lioness nodded, even though she noticed Axel acted different this night. Maybe he was just a little frightened because of the blue-purple thing in the mess hall.

"Master", began one of the men in the hall. It was a guard of the museum. "I want to tell you that-"

He was interrupted by Naran. "Stop! Our conversation is no longer secret." The voice of Naran was deep and growling. Axel and Lioness looked at each other with shocked and scared faces. They hoped the creature didn´t mean them. Suddenly they disappeared in a yellow light. For a part of a second they were in nowhere, then they landed in front of the creature. They looked up at it.

"Ah, I see, free people. Well, but in your mind I can see there are more of you around", said Naran, waved his hand and the three guys appeared in a yellow light next to Axel and Lioness. The five teens looked up at the creature.

"You want to know who I am?", he said as he noticed the asking and shocked faces of the five friends. "Well, I´m Naran, the emperor of the demons, fiends and devils! I defeated the legendary three dragons of the old Chinese emperor Xi Lun! And who are you, small human beings? But you don´t need to tell me, that´s unimportant. I´ll make you all to my nameless and weak-willed slaves", he explained. But as he rose his hand Axel suddenly interrupted him.

"So you´re making everyone to your slaves without any risk! You don´t risk that they could try to fight you or to fight your magic", he said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "And that´s cowardly."

"Ehm, do you think it´s a good idea to annoy this demon?", asked Hawk with sarcasm.

Naran seemed to think about Axel´s words, he hesitated. "Well, you think the human beings deserved a chance to fight against me? Then prove it! I bet you five small creatures cannot beat me", he said and grinned.

"So a bet? Well, if we win you´ll let everyone in Landmark City go and you´ll leave this world to go where you came from", replied Axel.

"And what if you lose? Let me see...Well, I´m in a good mood today, so if you lose I have the choice and can choose two of you five people. Those two will belong me and I can do with them what I want", said Naran and grinned because he was sure he would win this bet.

Axel felt the worried and scared looks of his friends in his back. For a short moment he broke the eye contact to the demon and turned around to them. "Our chance to free everyone", he said. His friends hesitated, but then King nodded at first. Lioness agreed and Shark and Hawk did, too. Axel turned back to the demon.

"Good, if we can beat you, you´ll let everyone go. If we lose this bet two of us will belong you", said Axel. "The bet is valid."

Naran laughed evilly. "Then let´s start the fight!" He waved his hand and the teens disappeared in the yellow light. They landed in another hall of the Landmark City Mess Halls. Naran was nowhere in sight. But then his voice resounded, "We´ll have three rounds. The winner of two rounds will win the bet", he said. "The first one is starting now!"

Something like a cleft in the middle of the room opened. Brown, yellow, darkblue and green colors were in the cleft and whirled around. Then something stepped out of the cleft and landed on the ground. The demon had the body of a woman and wore a blue-green dress. She had yellow and nearly orange skin, hair as red as fire that was in a ponytail and she had feet like a dinosaur. On her back were large, orange and red wings like angels have. Her eyes were just white and had no color. She moved elegant and stopped in front of the teens. She was not taller than themselves, but looked dangerous.

"This is Nitara. She´s a demon created with fire, so she´s a fire demon", explained Naran´s voice.

"I know, she´s hot", said Shark jokingly.

"You fools, be ready to end as grilled sausages", she hissed and spread her wings. She flew into the air and waved her hands. Balls of fire appeared in front of her. One after one she threw them at the teens who jumped out of the way to avoid them.

"But we have no weapons!", said King. "We can´t attack her in the air!"

They all looked around. In the hall was nothing, everything was empty. Nitara formed a large ball of fire in her hands and threw it towards the teens. They couldn´t jump away, it was too large. At the last moment Axel used an Jo-Lan energy wave as a kind of shield to destroy the ball. He could feel the heat of the flames, but the fire didn´t hit him or his friends.

"We have to separate, then she has to use more balls instead of one big!", he told his friends so Nitara couldn´t hear it. At once the team split up. Shark jumped up and down in front of her to get her attention. As she looked at him and prepared a fire ball he ran away as the fire ball crashed into the ground where he had been before. Behind the demon girl Axel got onto King´s hands and his friend threw him high into the air as he jumped. He landed on Nitara´s back and grabbed the feathers of her wings. To his surprise the feathers were as hot as fire and with a scream he let them go. Hardly he landed on the ground.

Then Nitara decided not to fight in the air, but on the ground. She folded her wings and landed elegant in front of the teens. "Be careful, her skin feels like fire itself!", warned Axel. Nitara just grinned. "I´m a demon created with fire. What else had you expected?", she asked smiling. She spread her wings and moved them as fast as she could. She still stood on the ground, but the wind around her threw the teens agains a wall. Now they were no longer separated.

She still grinned, waved her right arm and a circle of flames appeared around the teens. It grew smaller and smaller with each second. "What shall we do now?", asked Lioness as they all went closer together to avoid the fire. As they all stood back on back there they didn´t know what to do. "We have to give up this round, there´s no chance to win, she´ll grill us!", said King.

Everyone nodded. "We give up!", said Axel. At once the flames disappeared and Nitara stopped attacking them. The teens disappeared in the yellow light and landed in front of Naran, where they met the fire demon again. She stood there and smiled.

"So you give up? Well, one to nill for the demons. Let´s have a look at the second round", he smirked and sent the teens with the yellow light into another hall. They all looked at the colorful cleft that opened in the middle of the room and waited for something to come out of it. Now, after fighting against a fire demon and seeing the emperor of the demons Axel, King, Lioness, Hawk and Shark expected everything.

**Thanks for reading and please review! **


	5. The next Round

The next Round

Something jumped out of the cleft which closed then. A large animal that looked like a cougar with black claws, black thorns on its back, stripes like a tiger and a thorn on the end of its tail. First it looked at them with its yellow eyes. Then it went into a positionn to signalize that it was ready to attack. The teens took a step backwards. "What is this?", asked Hawk.

"This", explained Naran´s voice, "is a wild creature out of the deepest places in the world of the demons. It has not really an own will, but it sees me as his master. Just like dogs for you. But my one is much more dangerous! His name is Lerxes."

The creature jumped towards the teens. He opened his mouth and showed sharp and white teeth. At the last moment the five friends could jump away.

"King, you know something about animals! What would you do with a cougar?", asked Axel as they ran away to think of a plan. The demon followed them and ran very fast.

"This is no cougar! It´s a demon!", replied King. As they reached the other side of the room they stopped and turned around. Lerxes jumped towards Axel and threw him onto the ground. The creature places his claws on Axel´s arms so he couldn´t move them, Lerxes was very strong. He opened his mouth to bite Axel. "Do you know that you have bad breath?", he asked jokingly and turned his face away from the creature. With all his power he tried to push it away.

Finally his friends helped him. King sat down on Lerxes´s back on a place where no thorns were. He grabbed the neck of the demon which roared furious and turned away from Axel so that the could stand up. Wildly the demon ran around and tried to throw King away from his back. But King didn´t let Lerxes go and held on his back. As if he rode rodeo. "Yeah, go King!", cheered Shark joking.

King put his hands in front of Lerxes´s eyes. The demon saw nothing and began to ran faster and wilder. With furious roars he ran around the hall until he crashed into a wall. King jumped away at the last moment and landed next to the demon who laid passed out on the ground.

"I guess we won!", cheered Lioness. Her friends cheered with her. "But we still have to win another round", said Hawk and the mood got worse. They disappeared in the yellow light and landed in front of Naran again.

"So, one to one", he said and thought for a moment. "The last round will decide of your future. Well, of the future of two of you", he added. The teens just nodded and hoped they had to fight against something that was not as good as Nitara. The female demon stood next to her master, but her smile was gone. Now she looked angry with her white eyes at the teens.

"Why don´t you fight with us?", asked Lioness. The guys looked at her shocked and surprised. But the emperor of the demons just laughed.

"No, I prefer to let my brothers and sisters fight with you", he replied amused. Then he waved his arm and the teens landed in another hall again. They prayed no powerful demon would fight with them. If they lose, two of them would belong to Naran.

Nothing happened. No claft appeared, no fiend was there. Suddenly something hit their backs and they fell a few metres away onto the ground. Slowly the five of them stood up and looked around. They saw nothing. Nothing was in the room. But there had to be something that had hit them.

"What´s up now? Something we can´t see? That´s unfair!", said Hawk and looked around nervously.

"That´s not exactly as unfair as you think", said Lioness and smiled. "We can use our night opps."

"But then we can´t see our team!", mentioned King.

"That doesn´t matter. Let´s hope this thing can´t see us then", said Axel and they all used their night ops

Then there was silence, the room seemed to be empty as Axel looked around. They had to win this round, to free themselves and everyone else. Something hit Axel´s back again and he flew through the air. He crashed into someone of his team. It was Lioness. Instinctly she kicked him away, even though he was her friend. She couldn´t see him, that was the problem. So Lioness thought he was the fiend.

"Li, it´s me!", he shouted as he landed on the ground.

"Oh...err...sorry for that", she said embarrassed.

He stood up as fast as he could. But something hit his back again and he fell hardly onto the ground again. The night opp got broken and he seemed to be the only one in the room now. His friends could see him, but he couldn´t see his friends. "Okay, that doesn´t work", he said finally. Then he got an idea and closed his eyes.

Axel listened. There were footsteps of one big demon, and the footsteps of his friends who tried to avoid the fiend. As he heard something rushing towards him he jumped out of the way and could avoid the attack of the demon. But then he heard a sound, a scream and opened his eyes. Lioness hit the wall hardly, her night opp got broken, too. Now she stood up. Another scream. One after one the team appeared in the room again.

Now the demon could see them better, but the team still didn´t know where the fiend was. Axel closed his eyes again and listened. He heard the footsteps of the fiend in his near. Slowly he walked with closed eyes towards it. As he heard another attack he ducked and avoided it successfully. As he thought the demon was close enough he used a Jo-Lan energy wave and something very large hit the wall so it got broken. Dust rose into the air and pieces of concrete fell onto the ground.

But the demon was still invisible. It roared like a dinosaur and the teens heard large feet running back towards them. This time Axel opened his eyes. He couldn´t hear anything as the next attack hit him and he crashed into a wall. Seconds later Hawk landed next to him and they both fell onto their knees. Axel looked up. Lioness did some capoeira moves and she seemed to hit something, but then she landed next to Axel and Hawk on the ground. King and Shark saw nothing, tried to block an attack from behind and were thrown to their friends. They landed on the rest of their team.

Weakly they all tried to stand up. They could hardly stand on their feet and waited for another attack. Which came just seconds later. With a very hard attack they were thrown against the wall again and sank onto their knees. At first Hawk fell onto the ground again and couldn´t stand up. His friends tried to help him up, but again they were thrown against the wall. And again. One last time they struggled to stand up, but failed. They had lost this round and they knew this.

They disappeared in the yellow light and landed in front of Naran. The demon grinned because he had won the bet and the fight. "Did you like one of my best friends? His name is Clido. And he has the control over the air. Of course he likes being invisible."

"Is he really that ugly?", asked Axel jokingly.

A growl resounded next to Naran. It seemed to be Clido. "I´ll count that as a yes", added Axel and stood up. He could hardly stand on his legs, but didn´t want to fall to the ground again. He didn´t want the demon to have something that amused him. His friends tried, too, and some moments later they all stood again. Axel kept eye contact with the emperor of the demons. Every muscle in his body strained.

"Make your choice. We have lost this fight, two of us belong you now", he said, his team noticed his voice shook hardly. It annoyed him. The grinning face of the demons around him and the fact that the team would be separated.

"Hm...let me see...", began the demon and made his choice. He smiled evilly.

**Review, dudes, please!!!**


	6. The Choice and a separated Team

The Choice and a separated Team

"Let me see", he said again and thought for some moments. "I´ll take you!" He pointed at Shark. Shark´s eyes widened and he began to shake. Scared he looked at his friends who gave him sad looks. Naran looked at everyone. His look stopped at Lioness.

"What about you? Hm...well formed body, strong muscles...you look perfect", he grinned as he saw Lioness' shocked face.

Axel suddenly took a step forewards and placed himself in front of Lioness. "Take me instead of her", he said seriously. Lioness was surprised. "What are you doing?", she asked whispering. He just looked at her for some seconds. "I´m protecting the ones who mean a lot to me", he replied quietly and looked at the demon. She didn´t know what to say.

Naran started laughing. "You´re serious? Well, if you want...You´re looking very strong, so you could be useful", he said and thought for some moments. "Okay, I take you and the one in the yellow jumpsuit. The others can go because I´m in a good mood. But if you come too close to me you´ll be caught as well!"

But King, Hawk and Lioness didn´t move. Lioness stared at Axel in amazement and sadness. "Why...?", she asked. He interrupted her. "Please go now", he just said. Lioness still didn´t turn to go. Naran watched the scene interested. "No", she said and held him back. "I want to know why you´re giving up your life...just because of me."

He looked into her eyes. "Just like I said, I want to protect the ones who mean a lot to me, Cat", he replied shortly. Lioness looked at him in sadness. She knew he was totally serious because he had used her real name. He always did if he meant something really serious. And this worried her.

Naran interrupted them. "I thought of something I could do with you two", he said and looked at Shark and Axel. Both turned to him. "I´ll make you to creatures who are even stronger than human beings." He rose his hand and waved it shortly. Red smoke appeared around the two guys and their friends couldn´t see them in it. But seconds later they heard their screams of pain and then there was silence. The smoke disappeared, Axel and Shark laid on the ground and didn´t move.

"What did you do to them?", asked Lioness angry and wanted to attack Naran, but Hawk and King held her back.

"I mixed their blood with the blood of demons. The longer they have this blood in them the more they´ll become full fiends. I guess in four years their transformation will end and then they´re full demons", explained the demon emperor. He smiled. "And you will say good bye now." He waved his arm as Lioness want to run to her friends to help them. They disappeared in a yellow light and landed in front of the Aquatic Center.

"We...should go back to Garrett now", said King just and the rest of the team walked to Lee industries as the sun rose in the east and colored the sky red and yellow. There was a sad mood on the way back to Garrett and they all thought of a way to tell Garrett what had happened. But they needn´t, he had seen everything on the videos.

"What are we going to do now?", asked Hawk as Garrett typed something into his computer.

"We can´t defeat the demons, that´s sure", said King.

"We could hide here", suggested Hawk. King wanted to snap something at him, but Garrett was faster.

"That´s no silly idea", he said. Everyone looked at him in surprise. "Look, we can´t defeat the demons, they have powers we don´t know. Who knows how many of them are in Landmark City. And I saw on some superivision cameras on the streets that Naran, their master, sent people through the town to make sure that there aren´t any free people left. If they are caught...I guess they´ll end as slaves or as his meal", explained Garrett.

"But we can´t hide here forever! Where do you want to get all the food from? I mean, we can live with the food we have at the moment for some weeks or maybe months. And then?", asked King.

Garrett thought for a moment, but then he smiled. "I guess that will be no problem. Here in the basements are a lot of gardens to test new fertiliser for plants and so on. There is more than a square mile if you count it all together."

"Yeah, we´ll work as farmers for the next years!" Hawk laughed with sarcasm. He didn´t like the idea of doing hard work. Garrett noticed his look and just smiled.

"Don´t worry, Hawk. Robots and machines are planting the seeds and then we just have to wait until everything has grown big enough. And with the new fertiliser we´ve tested the plants will grow in half of the time they normally do. So this could work. The only disadvantage is that you have to become a vegetarian", grinned Garrett. "You can live here, if you want. I think if you stay in the Aquatic Center they´ll know where you are. Maybe the demon holds his promise for one or two years, but then? If they catch you they will make you to slaves, too. If you ask me I don´t trust Naran."

The others nodded. Exept Lioness. She stared away and seemed to be absent-minded. "Li?" She winced as she heard her name and looked at the three guys. "What do you think about our ideas?", they asked.

"Yeah...I think they´re good", she replied. But she was still a little in thoughts as they went to pack their suitcases.

While she was in her room, back at the Aquatic Center, and packed her suitcase she thought about the happenings. _Why did he do this? Why did he sacrify himself just for me? _She had always liked Axel more than a friend. Especially in the last time she had spent a lot of time with him and had been happy about being around him. Somehow she just thought of him, even though Shark had been chosen, too. She felt some strange feelings in her belly as she thought of the time she had spent with Axel.

For a moment she stared at a photo she wanted to put into her bag. She smiled a little as she saw the picture, but as she heard knocks on her door she quickly packed it into her bag and closed it. Then she opened the door. Hawk and King waited there for her. Together they went back to Lee industries, their hiding place in the new world of demons and fiends.

**Wow, this chapter is really short! Review, please, I hope you like this story **


	7. Time passes by

Time passes by

The time passed very quickly. Meanwhile they had found nearly a hundred other free people who stayed at Lee industries, too. They were happy to see people who had an own will and who were friendly to them. Naran had placed patrols in the city. Those were demons and fiends with large wings, they flew their rounds over Landmark City and searched persons who were still free. So the free people just came out at night, when everything was dark. But this changed some time later, even at night demons flew their rounds through the city and some of the free ones had been caught.

Everytime Lioness was absent-minded she found herself thinking of him. Somehow he was always in her mind. She missed Axel a lot and felt this every second. Their team was broken now, but they were still friends. One time King spoke to Lioness. "I know that you´re missing them. Especially Axel", he said and placed his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him.

"Why do you want to know that?", she asked a little annoyed.

"I´ve seen you staring at all those old pictures all the time. And one night I heard you screaming his name. Moreover you´ve been in love with him since we founded the team", he said. Lioness looked away. Then Hawk came. He had listened to their conversation.

"Ha! Lioness is in love!", he said and laughed. He couldn´t imagine Lioness having a boyfriend. She blushed and her head turned red because of anger. King got angry, too, and chased Hawk the whole day. But Lioness just went into her room, laid down onto her bed and stared at the ceiling.

This way nearly two years passed. The demons were very mighty and powerful now and controlled nearly the whole world. Their _capital_ was still Landmark City because their emperor Naran lived here. And with the control over the world the sky changed, too. It was sometimes red, purple, yellow and brown at once. The colors changed from time to time, but they always looked creepy and dangerous. Just when it rained there were the same old and grey clouds the human beings in Landmark City knew from the times before Naran came. So the rain made their mood a little better.

Hawk teased Lioness as often as he could. He got angry looks of her and King, but he continued. Maybe it had changed him that the team was broken and Axel and Shark missed now. Everyone was sad and more often annoyed and angry.

Lioness headed for the stairs to get some fresh air. "Where do you want to go?", asked Garrett who rolled down the corridor in his wheelchair. "I just want to go for a walk", she said quietly. Garrett understood at once.

"Listen, I know that you miss them...or him...more than the others seem to do. But they´re not showing their feelings, what you´re seeing is their surface. They try to forget what happened, why don´t you try, too?"

"I tried it more than I can count now", she replied. "But I can´t! It makes me crazy, everytime I´m in thoughts I can just think of him! I wish we would have never met", she added.

"So, there´s a method to delete some parts of your mind. I could delete everything with Axel", suggested Garrett. Lioness looked shocked.

"No!", she said quickly.

"Stay calm", he said and tried to calm her down. "That was just a joke. I wanted to know if you´re really in love with him. And obviously I can say yes", he smirked.

"That wasn´t funny", said Lioness. Garrett shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "But be careful outside, you know, the patrols are more often out as some time ago", he warned her and left.

Lioness went up the stairs and walked out of the large building. A lot of the building that once belonged Mr Lee was empty, the free people lived beneath the ground where the magic of Naran couldn´t reach them. Lioness turned right and went through a small lane. Here weren´t many patrols so she thought she was in safe.

She breathed in the cold air of the night. A moon was at the sky. Well, there were two moons. One of them was lightblue, another one was yellow and silver. But both were behind some grey clouds now and Lioness wrapped her arms around her chest because she froze a little. Even though it was summer, it was very cold at night. She walked slowly through the lane. A street light stood there and was the only light in the small lane. Lioness heard the wind rustling in some pieces of paper that laid on the street. She was a little frightened.

Then she heard a noise behind her. Lioness turned around and saw nothing. She continued walking. In thoughts she was again together with Axel. Sometimes she thought what would have happened if she had been chosen instead of him. Or what if another one would have been chosen? King or Hawk? But then she felt a fear in her. Maybe Axel just wanted to be her friend, not her boyfriend. Maybe he didn´t love her, maybe... Lioness shook her head slowly. Everything has happened and she couldn´t change it. But sometimes she wished she could have.

And sometimes she thought what would have happened if they hadn´t went into the mess halls. Or if Naran wouldn´t have appeared. She closed her eyes for some moments and thought of the situation now. It all seemed to be hopeless, Axel and Shark were lost forever, she wouldn´t see them again. Free people were very difficult to find now, nearly everyone of them was at Lee industries.

As she opened her eyes again she saw a shadow standing in front of her. It was a patrol demon. He had wings like a bat, a tail like a devil and looked now with white glowing eyes at her. She took a few steps backwards, then she stopped. It had no sense to run away, the demon would be faster. Maybe she could fight him. Slowly the demon walked towards her. He growled like a cougar and sharp claws came out of his fingers.

The street light stood behind the demon, so she just saw his contour. He was just a little taller than her, very small for a demon. But she was ready for everything. She could fight him, because he was smaller than the other demons. Then he spread his wings and jumped towards her. Lioness blocked a kick of him and went to the ground to kick his legs, he jumped into the air, punched her and missed. Lioness turned a somersault and landed behind the demon. He turned around and the light of the street light fell a little onto him.

He had blue skin, leathern wings and wore a complete black jumpsuit, like every patrol demon. His hair was short and darkbrown with some red highlights. He jumped towards her and threw her to the ground. The demon knelt over her, pressed her arms to the ground and looked deeply into her eyes with a hateful and furious look. His right hand was next to his head, the claws ready to kill her. Now she could see his face better.

Lioness looked into his face. Something was wrong with him. She noticed that his right eyebrow was razored. _That´s impossible..._, she thought and looked into his eyes. In the light she noticed they weren´t white like the eyes of normal patrol demons. This one had clear lightblue eyes. She tried to get free, but couldn´t. The fiend was too strong for her.

"Axel?", she asked finally. Her voice was not more than a whisper. First the demon´s face was still the same, hateful and furious. But then he seemed to recognize her voice and weakened his grip around her arms. Slowly his face relaxed a little and he looked surprised. Then he stood up again, folded his wings and took a few steps backwards. Lioness stood up, too.

"Is that really you?", she asked and felt different feelings in her. She was happy but sad at the same moment.

"Lioness?", he asked slowly. As she heard his voice which was still the same she ran to him and fell around his neck to hug him. But he didn´t hug her back. She let him go and looked into his face.

"What happened to you?", she asked.

He looked away. "I became a fiend now", he replied shortly and wanted to leave. Lioness held him back. She knew something else was up.

"You don´t seem to be very happy to see me again", she said a little sad. He turned to her and looked into her eyes.

"Listen, in the last two years I´ve become a fiend, one of them. Of course I´m happy to see that you feel good, but there´s one problem. My master smells it if I was in contact with a human being, so it´s too dangerous for both of us to stay longer in contact than just these seconds", he explained. Meanwhile his tail moved fore- and backwards.

"But it´s not the same without you. I´m missing you...and the others too", she said. "What about Shark?"

"Don´t worry, Shark is flying his patrol in the north part of the city. Even though he had never liked flying. Meanwhile he´s really good in it", replied Axel and folded his wings.

"I...Will we see us again?", she asked after a moment of silence. First he wanted to say no, but then he noticed the look in her eyes. Some tears of happyness and sadness were in them. Quickly she wiped them away. He sighed and retracted his claws slowly.

"Okay...tomorrow night, same time. I´m flying here patrol for the whole week", he said and looked away. "We can talk about everything else then, but now I have no time. In two minutes I have to arrive at the checkpoint to switch the patrol with another fiend."

"Thanks", she whispered smiling. He just shrugged his shoulders. "This is too dangerous for us, for you and for me. But if you want..." He spread his wings and flew up into the sky. Then he disappeared in the darkness and the sound of his beating wings turned more quietly until it was gone.

Lioness didn´t know what to think. What happened to the Axel she knew a long time ago? Now he was so serious and even more careful. But she understood him, it was very dangerous for both of them to meet. So Lioness went back to Lee industries. She laid onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn´t know if she could still love Axel, he was a fiend now and his character was so different. Maybe he just acted so different because he had no choice. She was sure she would love him even if he was a fiend or something else.

Before she fell asleep she remembered the fiend she had met this night and thought of any way to turn him into a human being again.

**Review, please! I hope it doesn´t matter that Axel is a fiend now...well, is there a difference between fiend and demon? I think no, so I use both words. nevertheless I hope you like it! **


	8. A Life as a Demon

A Life as a Demon

In those two years Axel and Shark had become half fiends. The blood of the demons was in their bodys and the more time the blood was in them the more they would turn into demons. Within time their wings, the claws, the tail or even the blue skin had appeared. But they had gotten used to being a demon, and to live with them. They followed the orders of Naran without saying any word against him. They had no choice. But the two were still good friends and a great team. They had no other one they could trust except themselves.

Axel flew slowly through the sky. The first time he had spread his wings has been great for him, the first happy feeling in a long time. Flying had been something new, something wonderful for him. But now it was just boring because he did it every day. If he was honest the tail annoyed him all the time and sometimes it was just in his way if he tried to practise his Jo-Lan. In the last years he hadn´t been able to train, he had to much to do. Flying patrols and serving Naran were a lot of duties at once. He had no time for himself.

At a large rope bridge he landed on a rope and folded his wings. He had noticed his feet began to turn into feet like Naran had. With black claws and so on. Maybe they were good to land on ropes, branches or cables. But if he thought of it...Axel sighed. His demon-like tail moved fore- and backwards. On its end was a thorn in the form of an arrowhead. One time he had cut his leg with the thorn, after that he was even more careful with the tail.

He noticed another demon flying towards him. It landed next to him on the rope. "Yo, why are we doing this? I mean, we won´t find anyone free here", said Shark annoyed and folded his wings, too. In the first year he had found it uncomfortable to fly. But he got used to it with the time. Axel sighed again.

"I know, but we have no choice. Naran wants us to do this", he explained, but he knew Shark was right. The free people hid very well and they had caught the last one months ago. Now this one worked as a servant.

"Do you know something else? I miss my old life, my life as a human being. I want to have fun again! Surfing all day, relaxing on the beach...", he said. "And the tail is annoying me", he added. Axel grinned. "Me too", he said.

"What do you think we will look like if we´re full demons?", he asked interested.

Shark shook in disgust. "I hope not like the fiend who came yesterday out of his world. Have you seen his shaggy hair? Ugly..." He shook again. Axel smiled.

"Do you think anyone listens to us?", he asked quietly. Shark shook his head. "Who should someone?"

"I met Lioness some moments ago", whispered Axel.

Shark looked surprised. "Really? I thought they were killed a year ago when some demons blew up the houses in the near of the Aquatic Center", he said and sighed sadly. "My comic books are still there..."

"You´re horrible, do you know that?", said Axel jokingly and both smiled. "What´s with her? Is she okay? And what about the others?", he asked finally.

"So far she´s okay, but I don´t know anything about the others. I had no time. Tomorrow we´re meeting again", he replied and looked away. He stared into the black and deep water beneath them. Shark understood at once.

"You´re still in love with her? After all these years?", he asked curious and started grinning. Axel blushed a little. "Why do you want to know that?", he asked.

Shark shrugged his shoulders. "I have my sources...This is like Romeo and Juliet, they were in love with each other and met every night they could to see each other again. And even though they were not allowed to meet. Forbidden love is so romantic!", he joked.

"Just wait until I get you!", joked Axel as Shark jumped into the air and challenged him for a race back to the mess halls. Their patrol for this night ended, so they flew back to the headquarter of the demons, the Landmark City Mess Halls. As they landed in front of the large buildings Axel made a plan. He decided to ask Naran if he could fly the patrols for Shark, too. And Shark could act that he was ill or something else.

"Master", said Axel as he stepped towards the big demon who sat on something that looked like a throne. "Please, master, I want to ask you something", he said and bowed to Naran. The demon nodded.

"Would you allow me to fly the patrol of my friend, too? He doesn´t feel good...", he began and Shark looked with a painful face at the emperor. Naran looked at him.

"Maybe he´s just sick of flying again. Maybe I should have turned you into a fish", he said and smiled. "But it´s too late now. If you want you can fly both patrols. You´ve been a good servant and guard, so I think you will make this."

"Thank you, master", said Axel and he and Shark bowed to the emperor. They had to bow to the demon,as usual. Then they both walked into the room they shared. In one of the large halls were the bedrooms of the demons. Yes, even fiends and demons had to sleep. So they had build rooms into the hall. They walked through a red curtain. Their room was very small, there two beds and nothing else. They just spent the night in this room, the rest of the day they served Naran.

Axel laid on his bed and crossed his arms behind his head. He stared at the ceiling. Over them was another room, so the ceiling was not very high. In the mess hall were a lot of rooms next to each other and at least four on top of each other. So even more demons could sleep in the hall. Shark jumped onto his bed, but cursed in pain as he laid onto his wings.

"Problems?", asked Axel.

"Yeah, dude, those wings are annoying me", said Shark and sat up to spread his wings.

"Thanks that you´re helping me", said Axel and sat up, too. Every night he laid on his belly, not on his back like he had done before he has had wings. They were very sensible and so it hurt him to lay on his back. Another reason why he wished his old life back. But he didn´t want to sleep like some other demons. At night they sat on thick ropes or sticks and slept like birds. That was too weird and uncomfortable for him. Shark felt the same way.

"No problem, if I can help you to meet your only and true love..." He was interrupted by the pillow Axel threw at him. It hit his face. Axel smiled as he saw Shark laughing and throwing the pillow back to him.

"Stop talking like that! You know, I have claws and I can use them", threatened Axel jokingly.

Shark laughed. "You and your claws! Ha! You didn´t hurt anyone since you have them. You just use them to threaten", he replied.

"And it works mostly", added Axel.

That night Axel couldn´t sleep very well. He woke up a lot of times and if he did, he saw Lioness´s beautiful green eyes in his mind. Of course he hadn´t forget her. He wasn´t able to. Most of his life as a human being laid behind him, but Lioness was still in his mind. Always.

The next morning both got up at sunrise. Or what you want to call sunrise. The world of the demons and the normal world had nearly become one and the same. There were just some lonely parts of the demon world who didn´t come to this world. Sunrise meant that two sallow suns started to rise. There were two worlds together now, so two moons and two suns.

Axel and Shark had a short breakfast and went into the hall where their master was. Some other demons stood in a row in front of Naran. They waited for new work because their work was done. The two guys walked past the row, bowed shortly to their master and left the mess halls. Today they had a special mission. Some demons thought they had seen free people in a house near the river.

They spread their wings and flew to the place. In front of the Aquatic Center stood some demons and waited for them. As they landed one of them spoke up, "This is your work today. Get into this building and look for free people. If there isn´t anyone, blow it up."

The two understood and went through the main entrance of their old home. Slowly they walked past their rooms and looked into each one. But they found nothing. "Hey, my comic books are still okay!", shouted Shark out of his room. Axel grinned as he walked into his own old room. He looked around. He walked over to the desk and picked up a photo. It showed himself in the middle of his friends, they were on the beach. He smiled a little.

Then he turned around and was shocked as he saw himself in a mirror. He took a look at the photo, than at his mirror image again. He looked so different, just like one of the demons. The only differences between him and a demon were, that his ears were still normal, demons had longer ears. And they were nearly emotionless. They couldn´t feel something like love, sadness or worry. But Axel still did.

"We have to get out of here, they´re blowing it up in some moments, none is here", said Shark as he walked into Axel´s room. He saw his friend standing there, looking at the photo. Axel nodded and threw the photo into the air. His claws came out in a part of a second and he cut the picture in the middle of the air into a lot of stripes that fell slowly to the ground. He looked at the falling pieces of the photo as he retracted his claws.

"Why did you do that?", asked Shark confused.

"I don´t want anything around me that reminds me of my past", he said. "I´m a demon now, and this fact won´t change. So it´s better if I forget everything that happened when I was a human being."

"And Lioness? Do you want to kill her?" Shark looked at his friend.

"No, tonight I´ll tell her everything she must know. Then I´m going to see her never again. That´s the best for her and for me. She´s safe and I can forget everything", he replied. Somehow Shark understood him. His life as a human being was gone forever, now he just looked into the future, not into the past.

They left the Aquatic Center, gave the demons outside a sign and they threw large balls of fire onto the building. Within seconds it started burning. Shark and Axel stood there and watched how their old home became a victim of the hungry flames. It was nearly midday as they flew away to do their next job.


	9. Secret Meeting

Secret Meeting

Lioness couldn´t wait for the night. She was nervous the whole day. But she didn´t tell her friends what she was going to do. Hawk would have laughed at her all the time. As the right time came she was suddenly afraid. She was afraid to see him again. Lioness had wanted to tell him her feelings the last time they had met, but she had been too frightened. What if he didn´t like her after all these years?

She walked out of building of Lee industries and headed for the lane. She walked through it and waited. The night was very cold and a gently breeze blew through her hair she wore in a ponytail. Suddenly someone grabbed her, pressed her body against the cold wall behind her and held something sharp and cold on her throat. With widened eyes she looked into a pair of blue eyes close in front of her face.

"It´s me", she said quietly. He let her go and took a step backwards.

"Sorry, it was just a reflex", he said and retracted his claws.

"It´s okay", she replied and leaned nervously against the wall.

"Why did you want to meet me again? You know it´s too dangerous", he said after a moment of silence and folded his wings.

"I know...but...it´s good to see you again and to know that you´re still alive", she said quietly. She looked away, but felt he was looking at her. She felt a little silly near him. She didn´t know anything about his life in the last two years. "Tell me something about you", she said.

"There´s not much to say. Every night I´m flying patrols, at day I´m doing different jobs for Naran, my master", Axel replied. He walked over to Lioness and leaned agains the wall, too. Lioness took a step away from him as she noticed their skins touched. He smiled a little.

"Don´t worry, it´s okay. After our meeting I´ll take a bath in the river, so my master won´t notice it", he explained. Lioness came closer to him and was a little relieved. Then she looked into his face. "A bath in the river?"

He smiled. "Yeah, you don´t know how clean the water is if none pollutes it", he said. She smiled, too. "What is it like to be one of them?", asked Lioness. Axel looked away and was in thoughts. Shortly he closed his eyes and moved his tail fore- and backwards. Lioness noticed that he always did when he thought or was nervous. She grinned.

"There is no big difference", he started. "Maybe I look like one of them, but my soul is still free. That is one of the differences. Demons don´t have feelings like sadness, worry... or love. But I still feel those feelings and that´s why I´m still a human being in inside. If I´m honest...The tail and the wings are annoying me", he added. And smiled a little. His face looked serious all the time, he didn´t smile very often in Lioness´s near.

"Did you...kill someone?" Lioness meant his claws.

Axel shook his head. "But I killed myself. I killed my past and so I just want to tell you...", he stopped and searched for the right words. Maybe this was the moment he should tell Lioness his feelings for her. But then she would maybe want to see him more often. Suddenly a feeling in his belly told him to run this risk. Lioness was worth it. He looked into her beautiful green-golden eyes. That look made his legs weak. _You´re head over heels in love with her_, said a voice in his head.

"I wanted to tell you that we shouldn´t meet again. It´s too dangerous", he said seriously. Lioness seemed to be shocked about his words. Then there was silence between them.

"Do you know something? Sometimes I ask myself what would have happened if I was a fiend now and if you were still free like me now. I always think it´s my fault that you´re one of them now", she said and stared at the wall in opposite of her.

"Then you would have to burn down the Aquatic Center. And maybe you would tell me the same I told you some moments ago."

"You burned down the Aquatic Center?", she asked with widened eyes.

"Listen, I had no choice. Fortunately there was none in it", he replied.

"Why don´t you come with me to the others? We could hide you in..."

"Stop! Don´t tell me where you´re hiding. Believe me, it´s better so", he interrupted her.

"But you could come with me, to the other free people. There we can hide you and no fiend or demon will find you", she suggested. He thought for a moment. "I´ll talk with Shark about this. If we do, we both have to disappear one after one, otherwise Naran could find something out."

"I have to leave now. I´ll come back tomorrow, but then it´s the last time we can see eachother.I'll you my and Shark´s decision", said Axel and spread his wings to leave. Lioness took his hand and held him back. He turned to her. For a long moment they stared into each others eyes. Then Lioness hugged him tightly. This time he hugged her back and pulled her tight to his body. It was the first time since two years he felt his heart beating faster than normal and a comfortable prickle was in his belly.

He let her go, looked one last time into her eyes that filled with tears of happiness.Then he spread his wings and flew up into the sky. He felt the cold wind blowing into his face. "Head over heels", he said quietly to himself as he headed for the mess halls. His patrol ended and he landed softly on the ground in front of the main entrance. He walked around the building and went through the entrance for the staff that led him directly to his bedroom.

Shark was waiting for him. "And?", he asked curious. "Don´t worry, none will hear us. They are all eating", he added as he noticed Axel´s worried look. He looked around and sat down on his bed.

"She wants us to stay with them. She knows the hiding place of them and wants us to come with her", he said quietly so only Shark could hear him. Shark got interested and sat up. "That´s great!", he cheered.

"Yeah, so you want to come with her, too?", he asked.

"Of course", replied Shark. "I would do everything to get out of here."

"Tomorrow night you must fly my patrol. None will notice it. Then you have to fly to a lane, she will wait for you there. Tell her about your decision and that I´ll leave her a message when I´m ready to come, too. It would be too obvious if we both disappeared at the same time", explained Axel and folded his wings.

"But you wanted to leave your past behind you", mentioned Shark.

"I know, but...I can´t do this. I can´t forget her, she´ll always be in my mind. That´s one thing I can´t let behind me", replied Axel and laid onto his back. He folded his wings in a special way, so they didn´t ache. Shark tried to do it the same way, but couldn´t. He sat up as his wings ached. "I hate being a demon", he cursed.

"Do you think we´ll ever be normal again? I mean, without wings and claws...", said Shark.

Axel shrugged his shoulders. "I hope so", he said. And moments later he fell asleep. Shark fell asleep some minutes later. Both were tired, like every evening after flying their patrol and serving the emperor.


	10. The Team gets together again

The Team gets together again

The next day passed very quickly. Shark and Axel did their jobs as usual, this day there was nothing special to do. Just some other patrols around the city. Axel was a little sad that Shark had to go. For at least one or two weeks he would stay alone with the fiends. As the evening came Shark and Axel sat on the rope of the rope bridge after flying their patrol.

"Send my greetings to the others", said Axel. Shark nodded and placed his hand on Axel´s shoulder. "Shall I tell her...?", he asked. Axel shook his head.

"I want to tell her on my own. When the right time is coming. But I think I have no chance, I´m a demon and she´s a human being, that won´t work."

"Come on, dude! Don´t give up that fast! I think she likes you, even though you´re a demon. We´ll see if you´re back at the team", said Shark and left. He flew to the lane after Axel described him the way. As he reached the lane, none was there. Shark waited and thought what Axel did at the moment. Then he heard a noise and turned around to see a young woman standing behind him.

"Shark? Is that really you?", she asked surprised. Shark nodded. Lioness ran towards him and hugged him. As she let him go she looked into his face. "Where is Axel?", she asked worried.

"Didn´t he tell you? He´s coming later because it would be too obvious..."

"...if you´re both gone. I know. Are you sure none saw you? Then follow me", she said. He could hear her voice sounded a little disappointed because Axel was not there. Or was it just imagination? There were at least two weeks to find out if Lioness really was in love with him. Shark started grinning. He was very curious about the other guys and their hiding place.

Lioness headed for Lee industries. She led Shark through the thin lanes until they reached the high building. They went through the entrance for the staff and got down the stairs to the third basement.

"Under the ground the magic of Naran can´t reach us. If you go down this corridor you come to our rooms. Well, King´s, Hawk´s and mine. There are still a lot of rooms free, you can choose one if you want. But first I´ll tell the guys the newest news", she smiled and went through a door at the end of another corridor.

In the room were Garrett, Hawk and King discussing something. They looked up as they saw Lioness coming in. Their eyes widened as they saw the demon behind her. They went into fighting position. "Lioness, a demon!", warned King. Lioness just nodded. "I know. Don´t you recognize him?", she asked. They all looked at Shark now, who grinned and spread his wings a little.

"Shark?"

The demon nodded. "Yeah, dudes, I´m here now, live and in color", he smirked. The three guys looked confused at the demon in front of them. He wore a complete black jumpsuit which was usual for patrol demons. His hair was still blonde, but it had some red parts. His skin was blue, just like the leathery wings on his back and the long tail with a thorn at the end in form of an arrowhead. He moved it fore- and backwards.

"That´s impossible", said Garrett and rolled over to his old friend. "Turn around, please", he said. Shark did. Garrett looked interested at his back and at the wings. Then Shark turned around again and looked at his friends.

"Na, you seem to be very happy to see me again", he said jokingly. Hawk and King went over to him and hugged their friend tightly.

"What about Axel? Is he still alive?", asked Garrett. Lioness nodded while King and Hawk talked to Shark and asked him a lot of questions.

"He´s still working for Naran. It was his idea Shark coming first. He wants to come later, in one or two weeks because it would be too dangerous and obvious if they both disappeared at the same time. He´s flying patrols in our near, I found it out some days ago. It was just a chance", she explained. Garrett thought for a moment.

"I know that you maybe want to get some rest first. But if you allow I would like to make some tests", said Garrett to Shark. He laughed as he saw Shark´s shocked face. "Don´t worry, nothing that would hurt you. I want to have a look at your skeleton and your skin. And maybe at your blood, we´ll see. If we want to defeat the demons in some time we need as much information as we can get."

"Of course I´ll help you, guys", said Shark.

He chose the room next to King´s. There he laid onto his bed, ignored the pain in his wings as he laid down and closed his eyes to relax. Moments later he fell asleep. He slept for the whole next day. As his friends worried, Hawk went into his room to wake him up.

"Get up!", he shouted and Shark sat up at once. "Argh, dude! Not that loud! I have a better hearing than you", he said angry. But Hawk just smiled. "Great to have you back", he said and left the room smiling. Shark followed him. They went to Garrett who waited for them in his lab.

"Are you ready?", he asked the half-demon who nodded. "Then get onto this place. Don´t worry, it won´t ache." Shark placed himself on a platform. A lot of cables went from the platform to Garrett´s computer. He pressed a button and laser scanners started to scan Shark.

After some seconds everything was over. "You can come here, if you want", said Garrett and typed something. Lioness, King, Shark and Hawk stood around him and watched what he did. After typing something Shark appeared on the screen. His whole body was shown. Then Garrett clicked some times and the skin of the virtual Shark disappeared. His muscles were shown. After typing another thing into the computer the muscles disappeared and there was the skeleton.

"Hm...just like I thought. There grew bones out of your shoulders. That are the beginnigs of your wings. The spinal column grew longer on its end, that´s your tail. Well, if you have a look at a normal skeleton this is very creepy. In two years nearly everything of your skeleton changed. Your shoulder bones grew a little bigger because of the wings, your feet begin to turn into something else as normal feet. And you have claws you can retract like a cat. Every sense of you turned better, as good as the senses of animals", explained Garrett and told them something about anatomy, muscles and so on. He used very much words they didn´t know and so they couldn´t follow him after some time.

"Oh, shortly to say nearly your whole body changed", he said at the end.

"Thanks, I knew this on my own", said Shark and sighed.

"Ehm, what did Axel say about how he wants to tell me when he comes?", interrupted Lioness as Garrett´s attention was caught by one computer. Shark shrugged his shoulders shortly. "He said he wanted to leave a message for you", he said. "But I think he will come in..." He couldn´t finish his sentence, Lioness had run out of the room.

"Where does she want to go that fast?", asked Hawk.

"I guess she hopes for a date", smirked Shark and went back into his room, leaving the others in confusion.

It was late evening and so very perfect for Lioness to go to the lane. She searched everywhere, but found no message. Disappointed she turned to go as she heart beating wings over her. Quickly she pressed her body against a wall in the shadows as he noticed someone landed on the ground in front of her. In the light of the street light she saw it was Axel. He put something white into a small cleft that was in one wall. Then he looked around and jumped into the air again to fly away.

As he was gone Lioness looked into the cleft in the wall. She found an envelope in it with one short sentence. _To C. L. _stood on the envelope. She looked around and went back to Lee industries. It could be too dangerous to open it on the street. She hurried back into her room and locked her door. Lioness sat down on her bed and opened the envelope with shaking hands. She was very nervous.

_Dear Cat, _

_I´m sorry that I couldn´t come together with Shark. You know the reason. Naran is very angry that Shark is gone, but he doesn´t seem to think I´m behind it all, too. Fortunately. In the next time I´ll be more careful. I´ll write you letters as often as I can, make sure none else reads them! I hope you found the hiding place in the wall. If yes, you can read this lines now. _

_I will place a letter there, if I´m flying patrol, that means every evening. You don´t need to answer me, but it would be very great if you could. Just place the letter in the claft, I´ll find it. It could last a little until I can write you back, as a servant and patrol demon I have not much time for myself. _

_Tomorrow night I´ll look for you answer. Then I´m leaving you a message in which I can tell you when I´m ready to join the free people. _

The next line was cancelled. Lioness tried to read it, but couldn´t.

_Send my greetings to the others, please!_

_Yours, _

_(You know who I am, don´t you? Well, if someone else finds this letter and he reads my name...well, I don´t want to imagine what happens then. You know my name and that´s enough, I hope )_

Lioness smiled as she put the letter back into the envelope. At once she sat down at her desk and thought of something she could write him back.


	11. Problems and Distrust

Problems and Distrust

After Shark´s disappearance Axel got a lot of problems. The other demons and fiends thought he had killed Shark, because of what reason ever. They had been against Axel and his friend after the two have turned into fiends. They were half human beings, so no fiends. And that was one reason why the demons hated them. Now they had a reason to make Axel´s life a living hell.

Axel shared his bedroom with another demon now. It was a young girl in his age, she had been a human being, too. In the first week after Shark´s disappearance they became good friends and knew they could trust each other. Emily, that was her name, looked different than Axel. She had no leathery wings, instead she had wings like a bird on her back. Her long, blonde hair had some red parts, she usual wore it in a long ponytail. After turning into a fiend she became a patrol demon and wore a short black dress and black pants.

Her skin was a little green and yellow, her ears were a little more pointed than ears of normal humans. Her beautiful blue eyes looked always curious, intelligent and understanding.

Axel walked to his bedroom as he met a fiend who stopped in front of him. He had purple skin, a long tail like a crocodile and red eyes. He was a full fiend, Axel saw this on his whole body. He was muscular, had long claws which he didn´t retract in front of Axel. He had long ears, leathery wings with thorns and scaly skin. He growled and showed his sharp teeth.

"So, you are the one who killed his own, half human friend? What poor creatures you are", he hissed hatefully.

"What do you want? We´re serving the same master, so we´re both on the side of the fiends. And I didn´t kill him", replied Axel and wanted to leave. But the demon held him back and showed him his claws.

"Now I have a reason to kill you. Well, I didn´t like you the 1st time i saw you, you looked and smelled so different. Our law says if you kill someone of your own species the murderer must be killed, too. And it would be a pleasure to me", he grinned evilly.

"You have no proofs. Oh, and by the way, you have bad breath", said Axel and left the demon behind.

"My name is Celwin, keep this in your mind! I will be the person who will kill you", he shouted after Axel who ignored the demon and walked into his bedroom. There he laid onto his bed and waited for his patrol to begin. He still had an hour time to relax. Moments later Emily came into the room, too. She sat down on her bed and spread her wings as she stretched.

"Bad day, huh?", she asked curiously as she saw Axel´s face. He shrugged his shoulders. "Do you know a demon named Celwin?", he asked.

"Celwin? Why do you want to know that?" Her voice sounded surprised and shocked.

"He said he is going to kill me because I killed Shark. He hated me since the day I became a fiend and now the law of the demons says that he can kill me if he has proofs for what he thinks I have done", replied Axel and sat up.

"You should be careful, Axe. Celwin is one of the most cruel demons here. In the last seven years he killed four demons and numberless human beings when he came to this world. I´m just warning you", she said. Then she stood up and wanted to leave.

"I have patrol now. See you later", she said and left.

Axel took a piece of paper away from under his mattress. It was an envelope he had gotten from Lioness. She had left it in the cleft in the wall. He opened the envelope and took out the letter. The letter was very short, he recognized her handwriting at once.

_Hey,_

_I´m so glad that you´re okay. Did you get any problems because of Shark? _

_He is very happy to be together with his friends again. His old laid back attitude is back now, but Garrett is doing tests with him. He´s checking his half-demon-half-human-blood nearly every day. He´s very curious about the demons and so on. But I think Shark doesn´t like it very much..._

_Nevertheless, please tell me when you´re coming, we´re all waiting for you!_

_Yours,_

_Cat_

He smiled a little and hid the letter under his jumpsuit. Then he wrote a short message and went out of the mess halls. He spread his wings and flew high into the air. Some minutes later he arrived at the lane. Sometimes he wished his old life back, testing vehicles for Lee industries together with his friends. Flying was not the kind of transport he had thought of. He prefered his XT9000, but this car was maybe destroyed by the demons. They did with every vehicle to prevent the free people from fleeing.

Axel landed in the lane and put the message into the claft. Then he jumped into the air, beat with his wings one or two times and slided silently through the cold air of the night. He was absent-minded while flying his patrol. He looked for the day he would be together with his friends again with happiness. Then his boring life as a fiend who served Naran would end. Nevertheless he would be still a fiend.


	12. The Day of the Comeback

The Day of the Comeback

Lioness was very happy as she found his message.

_We´re meeting here on 27th July_

His note looked fast written and she was a little worried because of this. But then she waited with happiness for the 27th July. She told her friends about it, who were very relieved, too. There were six days left and they all waited and waited nervously. Maybe the demons had found out what Axel had done? This worry was always in their heads.

On the evening of the 27th July Axel was ready for his last patrol flight. In the time until this day Celwin had watched him every day and threatened with his claws or teeth. But nothing serious had happened. Nevertheless Axel was careful all the time and trusted only Emily. But she didn´t know anything about his plans for this night and he was a little sad to leave her behind. Axel would free her if he was able to do so.

They both had patrol this night. Before they left their room he took her hand and held her back from leaving. He looked into her blue eyes for a moment and hugged her then. For him it was a friendly hug, but Emily totally blushed and felt her heart beating faster. She liked Axel a lot and saw a little more in him than just a good friend. Since they have met the first time she felt so, but she didn´t know that it was the last time they saw each other.

He let her go and left the room. He tried not to walk too fast. Demons could feel his fear. Axel was afraid the demons could notice that he was nervous and maybe they would stop him. After leaving the mess halls he flew through the air and headed for the lane. One time he landed shortly on the rope bridge and listened into the silence of the night. Of course his hearing was better than before and he heard even the quitest sounds. As he was sure none saw him he took out Lioness´s letter he still had with him and tore it. The pieces flew through the air until they landed in the dark water of the river. It was better if none saw the letter.

Then he continued flying and landed quietly in the lane. He saw Lioness standing under the street light, she was waiting for him. As he folded his wings she fell around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Finally you´re back", she said happy. But he suddenly stopped and pushed her gently away. He listened into the night.

"Shit!", he cursed as he saw a demon´s shadow standing on the wall. He looked at the two. Axel spread his wings so he couldn´t see Lioness. As the demon jumped down to them Axel grabbed Lioness, jumped into the air and flew as fast as he could. "What...?", she asked shocked.

"It´s Celwin! He´ll kill us if he gets us", explained Axel shortly and flew as fast as he could. Behind him Celwin came closer. Everything happened very fast for Lioness. Axel flew through the city, turned sometimes right and then left again. Celwin still followed them. She noticed he breathed hardly and sweated. She could imagine how difficult it was to carry someone and to fly for their both lives.

With a nosedive Axel flew close over the empty street. Celwin came nearer. Axel turned sharply right and disappeared in a lane. He landed quickly and told Lioness to hide behind a corner. She did and watched what happened then. Axel folded his wings as Celwin landed in front of him. He grinned.

"I knew something was wrong with you. You´re a spy for the free people. And you have a secret girlfriend", he grinned evilly.

"Jealous?", asked Axel with sarcasm. He still breathed hardly and tried to calm down his heart beat. Lioness noticed his tail moved in a different way then usual. She suddenly understood this sign which told her to run away. But she didn´t move.

"Where is she?", asked Celwin.

"If you want her you have to kill me first", replied Axel and went into fighting position.

"Ha! You want to fight with me like a human being? I know about your Jo-Lan, but it won´t help you. Demons way of fighting is different."

"You mean like brainless animals?"

"Well, not exactly what I meant, but you´re right. And you´re no human being any more. So your Jo-Lan spirit power will be broken by the blood of the fiends", grinned Celwin.

"Then I´ll fight your way", said Axel and his claws came out.

"You have no chance", growled Celwin before he roared like an animal. He ran towards Axel and tried to hurt him with his claws, but missed. He moved his tail very fast, but Axel could fly into the air at the last moment. Celwin reacted fast, too. He cut Axel´s leg with his sharp claws and nearly green blood fell onto the ground. Somehow Axel turned furious now and kicked Celwin. He turned a backflip, but the wings were in his way and so he had to fly some moments to land on the ground without getting hurt.

Celwin swang his tail and the thorn cut through Axel´s left wing. He screamed in pain and sank to the ground as the green blood fell onto the ground. For two years he hadn´t trained, that was a mistake. Now he didn´t have the spirit power to fight with his Jo-Lan, and for some movements the wings or even the tail were in his way. So he used the last weapons that were left, the weapons of a demon.

With his claws he cut through Celwins arm. The green blood of the demon rolled down his arm. Furious he roared like an animal and attacked Axel who rose into the air with his injured wing. Lioness saw he felt a lot of pain, but tried not to fall down. Celwin flew fast towards him and after he had passed Axel screamed in pain and fell onto the ground. Blood streamed down his wings and his right arm.

The demon landed in front of him and wanted to kill him, but Axel used his tail and grabbed Celwin´s leg with it. The demon fell onto the ground. Axel tried to stand up as the demon did, too. With a furious roar Celwin ran towards Axel and jumped onto him to sting his claws into his chest. Both fell and after a scream of Axel they didn´t move. Half a minute later Lioness ran to them and wanted to see what had happened.

"Are you okay?", she asked and looked into Axel´s face. "Axel? Wake up!" He opened his eyes weakly. He was still buried under Celwin´s body. Lioness helped him to get free. As she turned Celwin onto his back she saw there were deep cuts in his chest and green blood streamed down his body.

"I think I´m okay", he said and stood up, Lioness helped him after he nearly fell again. Green blood came out of Axel´s wounds that were on his wings, his arm and his leg. Even his chest was a little injured.

"We´re not far away from the others", she said as she noticed he closed his eyes. "Stay awake if you can."

"I´m trying...but I feel so dizzy...", he replied with a quiet voice and based his body on Lioness who helped him to walk. She led him through some streets and lanes. In one small lane Axel fell onto the ground. His whole body shook and he couldn´t hold his eyes open. Sweat was on his forehead and he breathed heavily. Lioness knelt down next to him and tried to help him up again.

"Come on, stand up!", she said to him and shook him shortly before he could pass out. His tired eyes looked at her. "I can´t...", he whispered weakly. Was he really that bad hurt? Lioness couldn´t see his wounds in the darkness. But she felt his warm blood streaming down her hands.

"Stand up, please, we´re nearly there", she said and tried to help him up. Weakly he made it to continue walking. Finally they reached Lee industries and Lioness carried him through the entrance. Then she used the elevator this time to get down. On the third basement she met her friends who were in search of her.

"Axel! What happened to you, dude?", asked Shark worried and helped his friend to an empty bedroom. Lioness laid him onto the bed. Unfortunately he hadn´t retracted his claws yet, so he cut her arm a little. Some red blood streamed down her arm, but she didn´t matter. He was covered with green blood of a demon and his wounds seemed to be serious.

King ran out of the room to fetch Garrett. Hawk and Shark stayed in the room. Shark shook his head. "You must fold his wings in another way. It´s hurting him now", he said and helped Lioness to fold Axel´s wings right. Garrett came some seconds later into the room and looked at the wounds. "They look very serious. Do we have bandages?"

Minutes later Garrett began to bandage Axel´s wounds as good as he could. But the only problems he had came when he wanted to bandage his wings. "Err...Shark? Do you know anything about this?", he asked as he didn´t know what to do.

"I´m a demon, no doctor", replied Shark and just shrugged his shoulders. "Imagine they´re wings like a bird has."

Half an hour later Garrett was ready. "I guess that looks good", he said as he looked at the thick bandages around the wings. Shark nodded, even though he didn´t know if the bandages would help.

"Li, what happened?", asked Hawk.

"Another demon attacked us. We could escape, but they fought with each other and Axel could kill this demon. That was very narrow...", she explained.

"I see you´re hurt, too", said Garrett and looked at her arm. Some blood streamed out of the wound. He got a closer look at it, then his eyes widened. "Oh no", he just said shocked.


	13. Different Blood

Different Blood

"What´s up?", asked Lioness frightened as she noticed Garrett´s shocked face.

"Fast! Wash out the wound, quickly, no time for explainations!", he ordered and Lioness nodded. She ran into the bathroom and cleaned the wound as fast as she could. As she came back Garrett took a closer look at the wound. Then he sighed. "Since when are you injured?", he asked. Lioness thought for a moment. Axel´s claws have cut her arm a little as she had laid him into the bed.

"I guess half a hour ago I got the scratch", she replied.

"And you was full of demon blood, right? So, if I pay attention to your pulse..." He checked her pulse for a moment. "...I could calculate if it was too late." He thought concentrated and mumbered something with speed of circulation or something like that. The others looked at him confused.

"What´s wrong?", asked Hawk.

"Lioness´s blood stayed in contact with the blood of a demon. Some time ago I made a test with the blood of a human being and Shark´s blood. And it was really creepy, guys. The demon´s blood, sorry Shark, turned the normal blood into demon´s blood, too. Slowly the color changed from red to green and an hour later the whole red blood was green. I compared the new blood to Shark´s blood and saw that it was the same...", explained Garrett.

"That means everyone whose blood is in contact with demon blood becomes a fiend, too?", asked King. Garrett nodded and looked at Lioness who stood there with widened eyes and a shocked face.

"You could be lucky, Axel is no full demon, just like Shark. I guess with real demon blood you would become a fiend in less than four years. The guys need four years to become a full fiend. So you will need five or six years. Moreover you cleaned the wound at once, so it will take much longer time to turn into a fiend."

"Is there no antidote?", she asked desperated.

"I could invent one, but it takes very much time. And I don´t know if it´s too late then", replied Garrett. "But I´ll try", he added as he saw Lioness sitting down onto Axel´s bed with an absent-minded look.

"We should go now, Axel needs to rest", said King after a while and everyone left the room.

At the early afternoon Lioness sat alone in her room and stared at the ground. All these years she had hated the demons for what they´ve done to Axel and Shark. She hated them and in the last two years she had made plans to defeat them. But now she turned into one of them, too. She touched her wound and winced a little because of the sharp pain that went through her. There was still a little green blood left, she couldn´t wash it away. It sat too deep in the wound.

Someone knocked at her door and she opened it. King stood there and smiled. "Garrett has a surprise for us. We´ll meet us at the elevator, oh, and put on your jumpsuit", he said and left to go to the lift. Lioness was confused, but she put on her jumpsuit and followed him. At the lift Garrett, Shark, Hawk and King waited for her. Garrett smiled.

"I have a surprise for you guys", he said smiling as they went into the lift. On the fifth basement the lift stopped and they stepped out. There was a small room with a lot of computers, buttons, some screens and one or two large keyboards.

"I will stay here. You four can go into the arena", he said and meant a large hall. They could look through a glass window into the arena. As the teens stood in the arena Garrett pushed a button and four vehicles appeared. At once their mood lightened.

Garrett sat in the control room and spoke to the speakers. "Well, I guess you still know your old rides? I took some changes, the engines are even more powerful and..." He started talking about the technical things of the new rides. The four friends just listened half to him, the rides caught their attention. Lioness went over to her motorbike and checked it. It looked like she knew it, she saw no differences. Her helmet laid on the seat.

She started the engine and raced over to her friends who still checked their rides. She stopped with screeching wheels in front of them. "What are you waiting for?", she asked through the helmet communicators. The guys switched a look and sat on their rides. Then they started the engines, too, raced after Lioness. "I bet you can´t catch me!", she said and drove towards a ramp.

Lioness jumped, turned a somersault in the air and landed on the seat again before the motorbike landed on the ground. She stopped and bowed to her impressed friends. "Anyone else?"

Shark drove towards the ramp, too. Then he jumped with his motorbike and spread his wings. In the air he turned three somersaults and one backflip before he landed on his ride again. He stopped next to Lioness and grinned. "That´s unfair! You have wings!", she said and laughed.

At late evening Axel came into the control room. He stood next to Garrett and watched his friends testing their new rides. He sighed. "That´s what I missed", he said and smiled.

"How do you feel?", asked Garrett.

"Better than tonight. My Jo-Lan didn´t work, Celwin was right. The blood of the demons destroys my spirit power", he said sadly and looked at his friends in the arena.

"Lioness got demon blood into a wound. It was too late, I guess she´ll turn into one of them, too", said Garrett quietly.

"What?!" Axel was shocked. "That´s all my fault. I didn´t retract my claws and hurt her", he added and looked at his hands. "Everything is getting worse, I can´t use my Jo-Lan, Lioness is turning into a demon because of me and Naran is still the emperor of fiends AND human beings!"

Garrett was surprised how easily Axel got angry. But he said nothing. "What about your wounds?", he asked after a while. Axel took off the bandages on his wings. The skin was closed again and just some blood was on the blue skin.

"But the other wounds are not really closed yet. This is the only advantage you have if you´re a demon, the wounds and injuries are healing much faster", said Axel and spread his wings carefully. But he could move them without problems. Then he stretched and yawned. "It´s good to sleep a little longer than just one or two hours. With the time it´s annoying", he said.

"So many things to do?", asked Garrett curious.

"Of course, after sunrise we´re doing different jobs, at the evening I´m flying around town as a patrol. The rest of the night I can sleep. That´s not much", he replied. "Nevertheless, I think it would have been better if I stayed with the fiends. You´ve seen this tonight, I´m just making trouble", said Axel and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"It was not your fault-"

"Whose fault was it then? Lioness', because she wanted to help me?!", he snapped angry and growled. "I´m sorry, but I think I´m wrong here", he added and left. Garrett looked at the closed door with surprise. Axel acted totally out of character. Or was this his character? In two years someone can change a lot.

Axel went into his room and sat down on the bed. After he calmed down he suddenly noticed something was wrong with him. He didn´t know what, but this day he was very easy to provoke. He tried to remember his Jo-Lan lessons. There he had learned to control his feelings and to stay calm. But this seemed so far away now. As he wanted to walk out of his room Lioness stood in front of his door.

"Hey, Garrett told me you feel better", she smiled.

"Ehm...do you have a gym here? Or a large room?", he asked and looked away. He tried not to sound annoyed. And it worked.

"Yeah, there is a gym. It´s on this floor, go down the corridor and then the second door on the right", she explained. "But why do you want to know that?"

"I want to get on the path of Jo-Lan again", he replied and followed her description. There was a room with crash matts on the ground. He closed the door and turned on the light. The room was very big and Axel had enough space to move. He did some stretching exercises before he started his training. First he concentrated and moved very slowly to get to know the movements again.

Then he imagined an invisible opponent and started fighting. First slowly, then faster. But as he jumped into the air to kick his opponent, his legs suddenly collapsed and he fell onto the ground. "Then I have to start from the beginning", he mumbered as he stood up. For a long time he just concentrated on his spirit power. He sat down on the ground and wanted to meditate for his spirit power. That was the best way to remember the training.

As he closed his eyes he tried to hear nothing. But there was something in him that kept him uncalm. He heard very loud noises and even his own heartbeat sounded louder than normal. He tried to ignore the sounds. He couldn´t. Moreover he couldn´t remember the training with his dad. Everything seemed to be gone. The only memories he got were about fiends. He saw his friends and himself fighting against the demons as he had been a human being. Then he remembered the red glowing eyes of Naran and couldn´t get them out of his head. Scared of this look he opened his eyes shocked and noticed he breathed hardly.

_Am I getting crazy?_, he asked himself in his mind as he stood up. Axel´s training failed, he couldn´t concentrate and with this he had no chance to remember his Jo-Lan. Now he wished to be a human being again. Angry about his failed training he left the gym. It had no sense to continue training. His spirit power was gone and the power of Jo-Lan was, too. The blood of the demons had destroyed everything.


	14. Demons and Human beings

Demons and Human beings together?

Lioness and King wanted to go to the gym to look for Axel. But they met him in front of the stairs, he wanted to go upstairs. "Where do you want to go?", she asked confused. He didn´t look at her and stared at the ground. "I´m going to get some fresh air", he replied and wanted to leave. Lioness held him back. "I´ll come with you", she said and looked at him, he avoided her look.

"No, this won´t be good", said Axel.

"But-"

"I said no!", he snapped at her and left. Lioness and King looked at each other with confused and a little shocked faces. What was wrong with him? "I don´t know", said King as he noticed Lioness´s look.

As Axel walked out of the entrance for the staff he suddenly noticed how annoyed he had snapped at Lioness and King. Since the day before he felt a feeling in him that made his mood worse, he was very often annoyed and angry. Without reason. Cursing he swang himself into the air and flew some rounds. At this time he knew no demon would fly patrol, they would begin in one or two hours.

He slided through the air and enjoyed the cold breeze that blew through his hair. He reached the Landmark City kathedral and landed between two statues of small creatures that looked like demons. They stared with their ugly faces into the dark night. Axel sat down between two of them and stared into the night, too. It felt good just to sit there, breathing the fresh air and having time to think.

But then it started to rain. Thick rain drops fell to the ground out of the dark, nearly black clouds at the sky of the night. It didn´t matter to Axel. He spread his wings a little so they were a shelter for him. He felt the cold drops pattering on the leathery skin of his wings and running down them. He rubbed his cold hands and felt the coldness catching his whole body. His breath left white clouds in the air. This all didn´t matter to him, he just wanted to think alone.

After a long time he heard the sound of beating wings. It was a patrol demon flying his round. Axel hid behind his wings and hoped none would see him. But he thought wrong. "Hey, you!", shouted a hissing voice of a demon. At once he jumped into the air, didn´t look at the demon and flew straight to the ground. He noticed that the demon followed him very fast. He seemed to be a good flyer.

Axel landed shortly on the ground to turn a sharp curve right. This was the only situation where he thought his claws on his feet were very useful. They went into the ground so he didn´t slip away on the wet street. The other demon followed him without problems. Axel hid behind the corner of a house and rested for a moment. He just heard the sound of the pattering rain drops. Suddenly someone grabbed him and threw him onto the ground. As he stood up he looked at the demon who had followed him.

"Who are you?", he asked with a hissing voice. Axel listened. No, HE was a girl, it was a female demon. She took some steps towards him and stopped in front of him. He could see her in the light of some street lights. Suddenly her blue eyes widened and she looked happy.

"Axel! I´m so glad to see you!", she said and hugged him tightly.

"Emily? I thought you´re flying patrols in the south", he replied surprised as she let him go.

"Na, after you, Shark and Celwin disappeared I got your patrol", she said. "Was it you who killed him?"

Axel just nodded and looked away. "Listen, can I trust you?", he asked her.

"Of course, I would die for you", she said. "What´s up?"

"I´m living with the free people now. There are my old friends and so on. My friend wanted to take me to their hiding place, but Celwin saw us and attacked us. I had no choice, believe me! And my friend got some demon blood into a wound...she´ll become one of us now", he explained. "I left now. I don´t know what to do! Somehow I´m angry, furious and annoyed all the time, without any reason. I think she hates me because I caused the wound to her..."

Emily lifted his face with her hand and looked into his eyes. "Don´t worry, that´s normal if you´re turning into a fiend. You´re feelings are getting crazy, sometimes it is very difficult to stay calm. I went through this, too, and believe me, in some time you´ll get the control of your feelings back...maybe in one or two months", she replied.

"One or two months?! Until then I killed everyone around me!", he said shocked.

"Imagine someone you love a lot, and then if you are annoyed again think of this person. Think of this person and remember that you´re trying to stay calm because of this one. You don´t want to hurt this person, so control your feelings", she explained.

"Wow, why do you know that?", he asked.

"Just like I said, I went through this, too, and it´s not a long time ago. Before Shark disappeared. I remebered someone who means a lot to me and I did this just for him", replied Emily and grinned. But her smile disappeared after a while.

"I must go back now. Naran wants us all to come back at exactly 3 in the morning. And I have to pass six check points until then."

"Why don´t you come with me? To the free people? You´ve been a human being, too, so you´re on our side, aren´t you?", he asked and his mood lightened. Emily started smiling, too.

"You would allow this? But what would your friends say...?"

"I guess they would be happy about more on our side", he smiled. And Emily smiled, too. She hugged him again. She was happy to see Axel again, and she was happy that he wanted her to come with him. She was that happy that she couldn´t believe it. Since some time she had fallen in love with him, he was cute, even for a demon, intelligent and had a great sense of humor.

"Come on, I´ll show you where it is", he said and flew into the air. Then they both flew together through the rain until they reached Lee industries. He landed on the ground and looked around. None was around. Carefully they sneaked through the entrance for the staff on the other side of the building, then they took the stairs to the third basement where the bedrooms were.

It was dark in the corridor, the other ones seemed to be asleep. They could see a little better in the darkness than a human being, it was enough to find an empty bedroom for Emily. Before they could open the door of the empty room suddenly the light turned on and Axel and Emily winced and held their hands over their eyes to see something.

Lioness stood in front of them, her arms crossed in front of her chest and looked at Axel. As she noticed Emily she suddenly went into fighting position. "Why did you bring someone of them here?", she asked with an angry voice.

"Calm down, this is Emily. She was a human being, too, and wants to escape from the demons", explained Axel. His eyes had gotten used to the light and he took his hand away.

But Lioness didn´t move and looked at Emily with distrust. Axel noticed this hateful look and spread his left wing so that Lioness couldn´t look at Emily. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as Lioness relaxed a little. "You can trust her", he said.

"You mean trusting someone like her? She is-"

"...a demon, just like me. And you´re trusting me, don´t you?", he asked annoyed.

"That´s not what I said, you´re something complete different!", she replied. "You don´t understand this-"

He cut her off again. "No, you don´t understand this. You don´t understand me, and do you know why? You have no idea of being a fiend, of being one of them! Do you think it´s fun to run around with large wings and a tail? Or with claws of which you know you can kill someone at any time with them? No, you can´t even imagine this!" He nearly shouted.

Lioness replied nothing. With shocked eyes and an angry look she turned around and went into her room. Axel turned around, too, and growled something as he went into his room. Emily stood in the corridor confused. She decided to went into her new room to get some sleep. Maybe everything would be normal again the next day. She hoped so.


	15. Training

Becoming a Demon

Lioness got up very late the next morning. She was still in a bad mood, but wanted to say sorry to Axel and his new friend Emily. Lioness knocked at Axel´s door, but none answered. She got in and saw Axel lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had crossed his arms behind his head. "Go out", he ordered shortly, but Lioness didn´t move. She stood there in the door and closed it.

"Am I talking to a wall? You should go out!" He sat up and looked at her with a hateful look.

"First I want you to listen to me", she said and crossed her arms in front of her chest. She stared deeply into his eyes. Somehow he couldn´t stand her look and looked away, his look changed from hateful to sad.

"If it´s because of my blood that...", he began quietly. Lioness shook her head.

"I know this was not your fault. I want to talk to you because of your behavior", she said. "What´t wrong with you? You´re not the Axel Manning I got to know some years ago." _And I fell in love with_, she thought. "You´re annoyed and angry all day and snap at everyone around you." She sat down next to him.

He sighed. "My feelings are going crazy. I´m getting angry without a reason and so on. At one moment I´m totally happy and at the other one I´m that annoyed that I would like to kill everyone around me. You can´t understand what a bad feeling this is", he said and avoided her look. She placed her hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes.

"I know, Emily told me. She´s a nice girl", said Lioness and smiled.

"Then you should put me into a cage for the next months, I don´t know if I can control me", said Axel and laid on his bed.

"What about your Jo-Lan training? Can´t you meditate for your concentration or something like that?", suggested Lioness.

"I can´t, the blood of the demons prevents me from remembering my Jo-Lan lessons. I don´t know any kick or movement! It´s like I´ve forgotten everything!"

"And what if you try to fight in another way? You could learn it now", said Lioness and tried to lighten his mood. Axel sat up and looked at her. "We could fight a little in the gym. If you want", she added.

Lioness stood up and took his hand to pull him up. "Come on, I know you can still fight. You just have to learn it again", she said and went with him to the gym. He didn´t say a word as Lioness went into fighting position and smiled at him.

"Don´t you think it´s a little unfair?", he asked and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Lioness grinned a little as she noticed his tail moved fore- and backwards all the time.

"What?", he asked and didn´t know why she grinned.

"Have you ever noticed that your tail is moving fore- and backwards every time you´re nervous?", she asked him smiling.

"No", he replied.

"Bring it on", said Lioness challenging. But Axel still didn´t move. She sighed. "What´s up? I think you wanted to learn how to fight?", she said and looked at him while he still didn´t move.

"I could hurt you, with my claws, my tail...and so on. I don´t want to risk that", he replied.

"First of all, you can retract your claws, so this is no reason. And the tail..." Lioness disappeared for some moments and came back with some bandages in her hands. She wrapped them around the thorn at the end of his tail. Confused about this he watched her. Meanwhile Emily came in and watched the two. She leaned against the wall and waited for what Lioness planned to do next.

"So, I think this must be enough", she said and finished her work. Axel looked at her amazed. "I wouldn´t have gotten this idea in a hundred years", he said and moved his tail a little to make sure the bandages were tightly enough wrapped around the thorn. But they held. He smiled.

"Okay, now, attack me and we´ll see", she said and went into fighting position. "Try to remember. I mean, that was two years ago, I guess you have the fighting lessons deeply in your mind, but you didn´t discover them yet. Maybe it comes back if you MUST fight", said Lioness.

Axel moved forwards and tried to kick Lioness. She blocked and attacked him with a punch. Axel avoided it and attacked her back. The longer they fought the more he got used to the movements. Suddenly he remembered parts of his training and tried some of the movements. They fought faster with the time and Lioness noticed Axel fought like he did a long time ago.

One time he was unconcentrated, she caught his leg after a kick and kicked his other leg away so he fell onto the ground. "You´re learning fast", smiled Lioness as he stood up.

"I could remember my training", he smiled and seemed to be very thankful to Lioness.

"Then let´s fight a little harder", she suggested and went into fighting position.

While they fought Emily watched them. She had never seen someone moving like the two before. One time Axel had told her something about a rare martial-arts called Jo-Lan. Now she saw how he practised it. Sometimes Lioness beat him and he fell, but the last time he had fought was two years ago and he needed to get used to the movements again. But Lioness moved elegant like a cat, avoided his attacks, jumped, kicked and punched very fast. Emily was impressed.

As she wanted to leave Garrett came into the gym. Lioness and Axel stopped fighting and only now they noticed Emily. "I see you could remember your training", said Garrett and smiled. Axel smiled, too.

"What´s up?", asked Lioness.

"As you know I´m working at an antidote all day and night", began Garrett. His eyes looked a little tired, but he didn´t matter. "I need some of your blood, Lioness. Then I can have a look at what the demon blood is doing."

Lioness nodded and followed Garrett who rolled with his wheelchair to his lab. Emily and Axel followed him, too. Some moments later Garrett had finished. "So, that´s all what I wanted. You can go now", he smiled and began to continue his work again.

The three walked out of the lab. "Ehm, do you know when I´m turning into a demon?", asked Lioness nervously. Axel thought for a moment.

"Maybe in the next days. The first three days nothing happens. Then you´re getting sick and after that your skin changes. I don´t know what happens then, it depends on what kind of demon you´ll be. It was my blood, so you could turn into a demon like me. After two weeks your wings will appear. They´re growing very fast and need three days until they´re finished. And the tail comes some days later", he explained. Somehow he had to smile, even though he felt miserable to talk about this theme with Lioness.

"Sounds funny", said Lioness with sarcasm. "Why are you smiling?"

"I can´t imagine you with wings and a tail", he said and his face turned serious again.

"Very funny", said Lioness again with sarcasm, but then she smiled.

"I hope Garrett can invent an anitdote", added Axel and looked away.

Lioness placed her hand on his shoulder and turned him to her. "Don´t worry. It wasn´t your fault and if I´m honest I´m interested what it will be like to be a demon", she smiled. But she knew on her own that she lied.


	16. Becoming a Demon

Becoming a demon

In the next month Lioness seemed to change totally. First nothing very worrying happened, she felt sick and dizzy all the time. So she stayed in her room most of the time. Two weeks later her wings appeared and she stayed four whole days in her room because the wings ached a lot. One day Axel stood in front of her door and knocked. He wanted her to come out.

"Lioness, you can´t stay all day in your room!", he said.

"But-"

"No but, come out, please!"

Lioness opened the door a little. That was enough for Axel to get into her room. Lioness looked terrible. Her eyes looked tired and were a little red because she had cried. Axel hadn´t seen her for a long time, meanwhile her skin was green and blue and on her back was a pair of leathery wings. She looked at him with sad eyes.

"What´s up?", he asked.

"I didn´t sleep for days because of those silly wings!", she said and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "And my skin is looking like..."

He interrupted her. "Don´t worry. Garrett told me that he nearly has an antidote. And if you ask me I think you´re still looking as beautiful as before", he said and tried to calm her down. "And if you want to sleep, don´t lie on your back. I had this problem, too, and believe me, I needed a long time to fall asleep without any pain." He smiled.

"Wait some days and you´ll have a nice tail", he mentioned and left. Lioness wanted to be alone.

Another week passed very fast. Lioness spent a lot time in her room. Meanwhile Axel showed Emily Lee industries and together they thought of a way to defeat Naran. Emily told Axel that if the emperor of the fiends dies, his magic will go, too. So defeating Naran was the only way to get a human being again. The two spent a lot of time together and Axel was rarely annoyed or angry in this time. It felt good to have someone he could talk to. Especially about themes that dealed with demons and fiends.

Especially Emily enjoyed the time they spent together. She liked Axel a lot, but didn´t know how to tell him. Moreover he seemed to like Lioness. So Emily was happy about the time Lioness wasn´t around, even though she and Lioness became friends.

At one evening Axel went into Lioness´ room. She sat on her bed and moved her tail fore- and backwards while she was in thoughts. "I have a surprise for you", he smiled and Lioness winced alarmed because only now she noticed Axel standing next to her. She stood up. "And what is it?", she asked curiously.

"Just wait some minutes", he said and took a black scarf out of his pocket. He wrapped it around Lioness´s head so she couldn´t see anything. "What are you doing there?", she asked and laughed a little.

"Trust me", he said and led her out of the room. He went with her into the lift. They stepped out of the lift as they reached the roof. Axel led her through a door and then they stood on top of the high building of Lee industries. The warm breeze blew through Lioness´s hair and she wondered where she was. "Where are we?", she asked.

"You can just ask questions, can´t you?", he said jokingly. "I want to show you something." He took off the scarf and Lioness looked around, as she noticed they stood on the roof she was amazed. The city looked empty like a ghost city, but the red sky of the evening was very beautiful. The clouds and the whole sky were painted red, yellow and orange. The sun disappeared behind the horizon at this moment.

"You wanted to show me the sunset?", she asked. Axel shook his head.

"No, I thought it was time that a lioness learns flying!", he said pushed her away so that she fell over the edge of the roof. With a short scream Lioness seemed to fall faster and faster. Then she remembered she had wings and tried to move them. She couldn´t and fell towards the ground. Shortly before she hit it, Axel caught her out of nowhere and flew with her back to the roof.

Lioness breathed hardly and looked scared into his eyes as he flew up to the roof. "Don´t do this again!", she said breathless and shocked.

"Why not? In some time you MUST fly, it would be better", he said and landed gently on the roof. But Lioness didn´t let him go. Her knees still felt weak and she shook as she thought of her fall.

"Li", he said gently and pushed her slowly away. "Don´t worry, I´m here to catch you if you´re falling."

"But I-"

"No but! You must learn this! And if you can fly I want to show you something else, but if you´re not interested..."

"What do you want to show me?" Now she got curious.

"You´ll see it if you can fly. There´s no other way to reach the place I want to show you. And if you trust me we could continue our training", he replied.

"Okay...", she nodded.

"Now, first try to move your wings...yeah that´s working. So and do this when you´re falling", he explained and Lioness went over to the edge of the roof. She looked down, the ground was very far beneath her.

"Don´t look at the ground, I´m here to catch you if something happens", said Axel and stood now next to her. She nodded again and jumped. While she fell she tried to move her wings. It worked one or two times, but then she continued falling. Just in time Axel caught her before she hit the ground. She breathed hardly and her heart hammered against her chest.

"Let´s try it again, I see you´re learning fast", he said and carried her to the roof again. There he explained her how to move her wings and how to slide through the air. Lioness listened concentrated. She tried it some other times, but failed.

"Hm...I have an idea", said Axel after a while. He turned Lioness around so that he stood behind her. Then he laid his hands onto her waist and lifted her into the air. With some beats of his wings they flew. "Now try it, I won´t let you go", he said and Lioness tried to move her wings in a right way. His hands lying on her waist gave her a safe feeling and she concentrated on her movements.

She was that concentrated that she didn´t notice Axel let her go. Lioness looked down at the ground and suddenly Axel flew into her view. He slided through the air and was on his back so he looked straight into Lioness´s face. Relaxed he crossed his arms behind his head and watched her. Lioness was shocked as she saw him and forget to move her wings.

Axel caught her before she hit the ground and flew with her up into the sky. "You see, you can fly! Just trust me and yourself and try it again", he said smiling and let her go. She closed her eyes and moved her wings as she expected to fall. But she stayed in the air and opened her eyes. Close in front of her was Axel who smiled and as she noticed she was flying she smiled, too.

Then she turned a looping and felt a great feeling as she flew. A feeling of freedom and happyness. Quickly she flew towards Axel who watched her a little proud. She took his head with her hands and gave him a short kiss on his lips. "Thanks, you´re so great!", she said happily and turned another looping backwards, then a nosedive and after that she rose high into the air.

She was so concentrated on her loopings and nosedives that she didn´t notice Axel totally blushed. He watched Lioness flying around like a happy young bird and felt his heart beating a little faster.

But then he suddenly noticed a shadow flying around. At once he recognized it as a patrol demon. Was it really that late? Normally patrols were flying three hours after sunset. It was dark, but the demon would see Axel and Lioness if they weren´t careful. At once Axel flew towards Lioness and caught her in the middle of the air. He turned a nosedive straight down towards the ground.

Before he hit the ground he slowed a little down, landed shortly on the street and flew towards some empty houses. Behind them Axel heard the sound of faster beating wings, the demon has gotten distrustful and knew something was up. "What´s up?", asked Lioness as they turned sharply right. Axel had taken her hand and pulled her with him because she couldn´t fly that fast yet.

He went into an empty house and knelt down on the ground next to the door. As Lioness wanted to ask something he pressed his hand on her mouth and showed her to be silent. She nodded. Axel looked out of the door and saw the demon standing on the middle of the street. He listened carefully. Then he threw his head back and screamed loudly. Axel knew this scream, the demon called some other patrol demons because he was sure someone hid around him.

"We have to get away from here", he whispered to Lioness.

Suddenly some demons grabbed the two from behind and pulled them out onto the street. There stood at least ten patrol demons who looked at Axel and Lioness know. The demons threw them into the middle of the circle of patrol demons. One of them took a step towards the two.

"Ah, Axel Manning, right?", he asked. "Our master will be happy to see you again. And you found a girlfriend! Master Naran will be very happy!"

Then the demons tied Axel and Lioness up and flew with them to the mess halls, where Naran was waiting for them.


	17. Again a Prisoner

Again a Prisoner

The patrol demons pushed Axel and Lioness onto the ground as they didn´t want to bow to Naran, their master. Their hands, feet and even wings were tied up and they couldn´t move. Naran grinned as he saw Axel, but he didn´t know Lioness. In the last time Naran had grown bigger. Somehow he was now two metres and a half tall. He waved shortly his hand and the demons around him walked to the door where they placed themselves in a row and waited for orders.

"So, Axel, you finally came back after what you did to Celwin", growled Naran. "The other fiends are telling stories about you and your disappeared friend. Especially the half-demons talk about you. They say you found a way to turn back into a human being and to avoid the curse of being a demon. But they´re all lying because they want some hope to be human beings again. They don´t know the only way, and they won´t get to know it." He grinned.

"And who´s your beautiful girlfriend? No pure blood runs through her body...no, she´s still half a human being, just like you. Unfortunately you remembered your training and so you will stay a half demon and half human forever. But she´ll be a full demon in...let me see...three years, I guess. Now, who is she?", asked Naran with his growling voice. He sat on his throne and looked at the two.

None said a word. "Well then...our law says that I have to kill you, Axel, because you killed one of us. But I think I´ll use you to get to know where the free people are hiding. In the last time they became even more and are such a pain in the neck."

"Just like you demons", replied Axel. A demon came from behind and kicked him in his back so that he kept quiet.

"We won´t tell you where it is", said Lioness.

"Oh, you don´t need to tell me. I know another one who will do. Do you remember Emily? Well, she´s your friend, of course, but she´ll do everything what I want to make sure her dear Axel is in safe", smiled Naran evilly.

"What do you mean?", asked Axel seriously and tried to stand up. But a demon kicked him into his back and he fell onto his knees again. Angry he looked up at Naran who just grinned.

"Do you think I wouldn´t have noticed she fell in love with you? She´ll do everything to save you, even if she risks the life of her new friends", explained the demon.

"You´re such a-" Lioness was interrupted as another demon kicked her into her back and she fell onto her knees again.

"Bring them away", ordered Naran smiling evilly and the demons wanted to bring the two away. But this time Axel stood up, his claws came out in a part of a second and he cut the ropes around his feet. Now his hands were tied up, but his feet were free. Enough for him to fight the demons.

"Ah, a fight, finally something interesting!" Naran seemed to be amused.

The demons showed Axel their sharp claws and growled. Then they attacked him. The first demon tried to scratch him, but Axel turned a backflip as good as he could at this moment and avoided the attack. Meanwhile he tried to cut the ropes around his wrists. Then he saw the sharp teeth of the demons who walked towards him. He got an idea. Quickly he bit through the thick rope while he avoided another attack. After cutting the ropes he was finally free again. Exept his wings, but he didn´t matter at the moment.

Axel ran over to Lioness, cut the ropes around her wrists, her feet and her wings. "Thanks", she said shortly as she cut the ropes around his wings.

"Two against ten? How unfair...", said Lioness and went into fighting position.

"...for the demons!", added Axel and attacked one of them. The demons fought mostly with their claws or tail, so Axel had a small advantage. He avoided the attacks, she swinging tail of a demon and the claws which nearly cut his face. He kicked the legs of the demon who fell on the ground now. The demon nearly passed out because of the surprise. Axel used this moment, rose with the demon into the air and threw him onto another one who was about to attack Lioness from behind.

He kicked a demon out of the air and landed next to Lioness after turning a backflip. "I´ve never tried turning a backflip with wings...they make me slowlier, but it still works!", he smiled and went into fighting position again. There were still seven demons left who showed the two their teeth and claws.

Lioness avoided a tail that wanted to wrap around her legs. Then she whirled around and kicked a demon behind her. With a fast movement she punched another one and kicked his legs. He fell onto the ground. She turned a backflip as she noticed someone stood behind her. Lioness landed in the back of the demon and kicked him, he fell onto the other one.

Some moments later the demons laid passed out on the ground. "And now to you!", yelled Axel furious and his claws came out. He flew towards Naran who just yawned bored. Lioness flew now to the demon, too. Naran waved his hand and Axel was thrown against a wall. Lioness tried to attack the emperor now, but he wrapped his tail around her waist and threw her into any direction.

Naran didn´t notice that Axel was on his feet again. He flew towards the demon and his claws went through Naran´s face. The demon growled angry and snapped after Axel. Then he waved his hand and something wrapped around Axel´s wings, feet and hands. It looked like small lightnings which glowed red and wrapped around his body. Just like ropes.

"What the...?" With this Axel fell hardly onto the ground and couldn´t move. Another red glowing energy rope wrapped around his waist and tied his wings to his body. As he tried to move suddenly the energy ropes began to glow even more red and a sharp pain went through his body, so he screamed. The pain stopped after some seconds. Axel breathed heavily and closed his eyes. He gave up and didn´t move.

Now Lioness attacked Naran again, but some red energy ropes wrapped around her, too, so that she fell onto the ground next to Axel. She didn´t try to move, she had seen what the ropes could do.

"So, now you´ll pay for it! Unfortunately I must let you alive until I know where your friends are hiding. But this won´t take long and I´ll kill you on my own", growled Naran furious. Green blood ran down his face. "And I´ll think of something nice for your girlfriend. Now I know who she is, Catalina Leone, right? Yes, you were lucky that I didn´t choose you...but now I´m still thinking of the idea with the breeding..." He grinned evilly as Lioness´s eyes widened.

"If you do anything to her I´ll-" Axel was cut off by the ropes which sent another wave of pain through him. He tried to scream not, but couldn´t. The pain was that sharp and hard that he screamed. It weakened him a little and he breathed hardly. Sweat was on his forehead and he looked up at the emperor.

"You´re a little too rebellious, if you ask me. But I´ll deal with you later", said Naran and ordered some demons to bring the two away.

Axel and Lioness were taken to the cellar. The demons threw them into a small room which was supposed to be their prison. The room was empty. A candle stood in one corner of the room, but exept this there was no light. The energy ropes disappeared after the door closed. Axel rubbed his wrists angry and stood up to check the door. It had no keyhole.

"Jo-Lan chohumatsu!", he cried and moved forwards to the door. No energy wave appeared, the door was still there. Confused Axel looked at his hands. "Shit!", he cursed and kicked the door one time. Then he went over to Lioness again and sank to the ground, staring at the door. Lioness placed her hand on his shoulder and tried to calm him down.

"I guess they knew about your Jo-Lan and did something with the door", she suggested. Axel said nothing, he still stared at the door. "It didn´t help us that you taught me how to fly, did it?", she said jokingly after a while and picked up the candle. She placed it in front of them.

"No, it didn´t help. Unfortunately", he replied and for a moment he thought at the short kiss Lioness had given him. Maybe it has been just a friendly one because she had been so happy. But Axel still felt a little happier as he thought of it.

"Do you think Emily will do what Naran wants?", asked Lioness after a moment of silence and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"I...I don´t know. I didn´t notice that she..."

"...fell in love with you? Are you really that blind? I mean, she was around you all the time, tried to get your attention and so on", told Lioness him.

"Really? I didn´t notice it", he replied. "I mean who would fall in love with me?"

Lioness kept quiet. _I would_, she thought and first she wanted to tell him, but didn´t.

"What are we going to do now?", she asked instead. Axel didn´t know. The room had no windows and the only entrance was the door. He found no answer for this question. "I really don´t know", he replied sadly. "The only thing we can do is hoping that Emily won´t tell Naran about where our friends are hiding", he added.

Emily came into the room. Garrett, King, Hawk and Shark looked up. The three guys helped Garrett with his antidote, he has nearly finished. He just needed to make more of the antidote and had to calculate the ingredients.

"Do you know where Axel is?", she asked and looked at them.

"No, I thought he was with you", replied King.

"I haven´t seen him since evening. And now it´s nearly one in the morning and he didn´t come back", she said worried.

"And Lioness is gone, too", said Hawk. "I wanted to ask her if she wanted to help us, but she wasn´t in her room."

"Maybe the two went for a walk?", said Shark, grinned and blinked shortly to King who understood and grinned, too.

"What´s up with you guys?", asked Emily confused.

"Didn´t you notice he´s totally in lo-", began Hawk, but Shark and King quickly pressed their hands on his mouth so he couldn´t say anything. They knew Emily liked Axel a lot, so it would hurt her to get to know he loved someone else. Now she looked confused at the two guys who tried to make him shut up.

"What?", asked Hawk as the two let him go. "He loves Lione-" Again Shark and King grabbed Hawk and didn´t want him to continue talking. But too late. Emily knew what was up now. She left the room quickly with tears in her eyes.

"You idiot!", hissed King as Hawk looked confused.

"Of course she was in love with Axel, didn´t you see that? You broke her heart instead of him", said Garrett angry. Shark followed Emily. "Em, wait!", he shouted, but she didn´t stop. He stopped in the door and saw Emily running away. Disappointed he stared after her.

Emily nearly cried. She didn´t want to, but she felt tears coming up into her eyes. Now she felt so silly and unimportant. Sometimes she had hoped he would love her, too, but she knew now that her hope was useless. Who would fall in love with a demon like her? She went up the stairs and after some minutes she stood on top of the roof. Elegant she jumped into the air and decided to search him. Even though he didn´t love her he was her friend and she was worried.

Emily landed on the rope bridge and looked around. Suddenly someone landed next to her, but she didn´t fly away. A demon looked at her with his red eyes. "You´re Emily, right?", he asked with his gently voice. Emily got distrustful. She had never heard a demon speaking with a gently voice, they normally hiss. She didn´t know why, but she nodded.

"Naran sent me. He is very sad that you´re gone. But he wants you to come back and tell him where the free people are hiding", continued the demon.

Emily was shocked. "I won´t", she said seriously. She wouldn´t betray her friends.

"He expected this answer. But you should better do what he wants. A half demon and his friend are visiting him at the moment and I don´t know how long they´ll stay alive", added the demon and grinned a little. He folded his large, leathery wings.

"Axel", whispered Emily shocked and surprised.

"Yeah, right. You can decide until sunrise, then Naran expects your decision. Tell us where the free people are, or your friend will die", said the demon and flew away.

Emily sat alone on a rope of the rope bridge and was deeply in thoughts. She stared at the nearly black water beneath her and didn´t know what to do.


	18. Decision Time

Decision Time

Axel and Lioness sat the whole night in the small room. The candle became smaller and smaller until just a small flame lit the room. In the middle of the night the candle was put out. Endless darkness was in the room. With a sigh Axel pulled his knees up to his chest and stared into nowhere. Even though it wasn´t cold he shook and froze a little. He wrapped his arms around his knees and folded his wings.

"Lioness?", he asked quietly. Lioness didn´t answer. Instead he heard her regular breath, she was asleep next to him.

As Axel was half asleep Lioness suddenly woke up alarmed. "What´s up?", he asked worried. He still froze and shook, meanwhile a little more. "Just a bad dream", said Lioness quietly, crept over to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. As she touched his skin shortly she seemed to be shocked.

"Why are you so cold?", she asked with a worried look on her face he couldn´t see in the darkness.

"Don´t know, I´m just freezing a little", he said. Lioness clung her body tighter to his one and closed her eyes. The warmth of her body felt good and Axel stopped shaking a little. Nevertheless he still froze. After some time, as he thought Lioness was asleep, he wrapped his arm around her and laid his head on hers. He yawned shortly and closed his eyes. The coldness made him tired.

But he couldn´t sleep. The time passed slowly and at three in the morning a demon came in and brought them a new candle. While he was in the room suddenly the energy ropes appeared again and Axel and Lioness had no chance to escape. Disappointed they looked at the door as the ropes disappeared again. Now there stood an even higher and thicker candle in front of them and spent light.

Lioness thought the whole night. Should she tell him? Or not? Naran said he would deal with Axel and her later...maybe Emily was that desperated that she would tell him abuot the free people. The poor girl, feelings can make someone very weak. Maybe this was their last time they spent together.

"Axel?", she began quietly and felt a strange feeling in her belly. She was nervous but interested in his reaction.

"Hm?" He was half asleep, but couldn´t fall asleep. His eyes were closed and he had wrapped his arms tightly around his body and tried to reheat. While Lioness said nothing and searched the right words he wrapped his wings a little around his body, too. This didn´t help, too. His skin felt as cold as ice. Axel looked at her as she kept quiet for a very long time. She stared into his face and seemed to be absent-minded.

"What´s up?", he asked and caught her attention.

"I...I just...", she started, but didn´t finish. "Nothing", she said, turned his back to him and laid onto the ground. She wrapped her arms and her wings around her body. Axel looked at her worried. He felt something was on her heart and she wanted to tell him. So he crept over to her and looked over her shoulder. She didn´t seem to notice him. "Li?", he asked whispering into her ear. Then he turned her onto her back so that she looked straight into his eyes.

Their faces were very close to each other as they looked into each others eyes. Lioness wanted to say something, but didn´t. Their faces came very slowly closer to each other. As they nearly kissed suddenly someone opened the door and they sprang away from each other and looked at the demon who stood in the door. The energy ropes wrapped around their hands, wings and feet again so that the two couldn´t move.

"Am I disturbing?", he asked grinning and showed his sharp teeth.

"Yes you are", replied Axel annoyed and stood up. Three other demons appeared and carried the two to the hall where Naran sat on his throne. They were thrown onto the ground in front of the emperor who grinned at them.

"The sun is rising in some moments and you two will watch me when I´m defeating the free people", said Naran, he was sure that Emily would come.

"She won´t come, I´m sure", said Axel and looked at the demon with hate.

"No, I´m sorry to disappoint you", said a voice and they all looked at the demon girl who stood in the entrance. It was Emily. Naran´s grin turned bigger as he saw her. "What did you say?", he said to Axel who looked sad at the ground. Feelings made people really weak.

"Now, let them go", she said and walked over to them.

"First you must tell me where the free people are!", ordered Naran. Emily nodded.

"They´re hiding in-"

"Don´t tell him!", shouted Axel and Emily looked for a second at him. "Please", he added whispering. He noticed tears in her eyes. "Think of all the others you´re killing with this! I...you won´t get my love if you kill all my friends! So it will be useless if you get us free, you and I are just friends. But our friendship means a lot to me, so-"

"Shut up, you´re disturbing her!", growled Naran and the energy ropes sent a hard pain through Axel´s body. He screamed and fell onto the ground. His legs were weak and each part of his body ached as the pain stopped. His breath was fast and he closed his eyes to try to forget the pain.

Emily seemed to think about Axel´s words.

"Please, don´t tell him whe-" Axel was cut off by another wave of pain which went through him. This time he didn´t scream that loud and tried to ignore the pain. Heavily breathing he looked at Emily with disappointment in his eyes. Then he suddenly tried to stand up. With shaking knees he struggled to walk towards Emily. One or two steps in front of her the pain came back and went through his body.

Axel screamed because the pain was harder than before. His view became blurry and he just felt the intensive pain running through his body. It made him blind and his senses grew weaker. His muscles suddenly gave up and he fell hardly onto the ground in front of Emily.

"Please...don´t tell...him where they...are", he said weakly before he passed out with desperated tears in his eyes.

First Emily wanted to help him, but Naran caught her attention again. "Tell me", he growled. "Or I´ll kill him in front of your eyes."

"They...are hiding in the basements of Lee industries", she said quietly.

Lioness couldn´t believe what she heard. Emily really betrayed all her friends just to save Axel! But maybe she would have did the same thing for him. Naran laughed. Now he was sure he would defeat the free people forever. He stood up and walked towards Emily. With a wave of his hand she was suddenly tied up, too. And with red glowing energy ropes. Surprised and schocked she fell onto the ground.

Naran called all his demons to him. Then he went out of the mess halls, swang himself into the air and flew to his new aim. The other demons, more than fourhundred, followed him without saying a word and grinning faces. They were all full demons, the half demons stayed in the mess halls.

"We have to warn them!", said Lioness furious and desperated.

Emily still laid on the ground. Her hair were in front of her face, so Lioness couldn´t look at her. But she saw hot tears ran down her cheeks and fell onto the ground. She shook on her whole body.

For at least five minutes there was an endless silence in the large hall. It was broken by Axel who woke up moaning. "Okay, if you do this again I-" He stopped as he noticed Naran was gone. "Shit! Where is this guy?", he asked and looked first at Lioness, then at Emily. His look stopped at her as he noticed she was crying. "Hey, what´s up?", he asked worried and with a gently voice.

She rose her head and looked into his eyes. Her cheeks were red because of the heat she felt in her head. "I guess you hate me now", she just said and laid her head onto the ground.

"Why should I?", he asked and didn´t know what she meant.

"She...told Naran where our friends are...", mentioned Lioness quietly.

Axel looked at her with widened eyes. "She did what?!" He didn´t want to sound angry or disappointed. But unfortunately his voice sounded exactly like he didn´t want it. As Emily heard that she sobbed shortly and and still cried silently. The tears ran down her face and as they fell onto the ground they broke into a thousand of pieces.

Lioness could move her legs a little and kicked Axel hardly into his side. "Hey!" He looked at Lioness now. She gave him a _don´t-talk-to-her-like-that-at-the-moment-because-she-just-did-it-for-you-and-you-should-be-glad-to-have-such-a-great-friend-who-loves-you-_look. Axel shutted up. But then Lioness kicked him again, this time not that hard. "Do you know that you´re kicking me the whole time?", he asked with sarcasm.

She crept over to him. To her surprise the energy ropes didn´s sent a pain through her body when she moved. So she could come over to Axel slowly. "Come on, she just did it for you", she said.

"But she-"

"Stop! Let me talk first. So, don´t you see her heart is enough broken? Broken by you. And now you make everything worse if you´re telling her it´s her fault that Naran will get our friends."

"But-"

"What did I say?!", interrupted Lioness calmly. Axel said nothing and listened to her. "She knows that it´s her fault, so you don´t need to tell her. Moreover it hurts her even more if you´re mad at her because she wanted to help you. Now you can talk." She grinned a little.

After Lioness finished Axel didn´t know what to say. Instead of saying something he slowly crept over to Emily who laid there with closed eyes. She had stopped crying, her face was red and full of tears. Tears of a broken heart.

"Hey", he said gently and quietly so only Emily could hear him. She opened her eyes a little and looked at him. Her normally blue eyes were red because of crying. Their faces were very close to each other so Lioness couldn´t hear their conversation. Instead of listening she watched the two.

"What do you want?", asked Emily a little angry back. But her voice shook because of sadness. "Please go away...I know that you love Lioness, so why are you still talking to me if you hate me?", she said that loud that Lioness could hear her easily.

Axel still looked at Emily. But he noticed Lioness´s surprised look in his back. Even though he didn´t look at her he blushed and his heart beat a little faster. Now Lioness knew everything. He sighed silently and came a little closer to Emily.

"But as you know our friendship means a lot to me. Why should I hate you? For that you wanted to save me? I would do the same for people I love and who mean a lot to me. So it was not right what you did, but it wasn´t wrong, too. None can say you made a wrong or right decision. I know it´s hard for you to get to know that the one you love is in love with another one..." He meant Lioness. "But we can still be friends, and that would mean a lot to me."

Emily looked up and straight into his eyes. Again tears came up. Slowly she crept a little over to him and buried her head in his jumpsuit. "Thanks", she whispered with a shaking voice and hot tears ran down her cheeks.


	19. Attack of the Demons

Attack of the Demons

"It´s finished!", cheered Garrett and showed King, Shark and Hawk a small bottle with a darkblue liquid. "I filled three bottles with it. The others just have to drink the antidote and within minutes they´ll be human beings again...I guess."

"You guess?!" Shark became nervous.

"We must test it", replied Garrett and looked at Shark.

"Okay, okay, I´ll drink it...but I guess it won´t taste good, will it?"

Garrett shook his head. But before Shark could drink the antidote suddenly something came through the ceiling. Concrete fell onto the ground and dust rose into the air. For some seconds the four guys couldn´t see anything. But then there was a large shadow in the dust. He spread his wings and moved his tail dangerously fore- and backwards. Claws came out of his fingers.

"Naran", said Shark quietly as he saw the face of the demon who stood there.

"Right, and now you´ll all come with me!", said Naran calmly and waved his hand. At once energy ropes appeared and tied up the four guys. While Naran grinned evilly the four heard screams and shouts of the other free people. The demons were catching them one after one. But then the shouts disappeared and there was endless silence. Naran grinned at the three who laid on the ground in front of him. Garrett still sat in his wheelchair, but couldn´t move, too.

As King tried to get free the energy waves sent a pain through his body. He screamed and stopped moving at once. Hardly breathing he looked hateful at the demon who stood in front of him. "Oh, did I forget to mention that these ropes are made up of magic? They sent pain through you if you move too much. Very nice invention, isn´t it? They´ve been made for demons, so human beings feel the pain even more."

A demon came in. He bowed to his master. "Master, we caught all of the free people", he said. Naran smiled. "Great! Order the others to bring them back to our headquarter. And then blow everything up, I don´t want anyone to survive."

"Like you want, Master", said the demon and bowed again to Naran. Then he left. Naran himself clapped with his hands and four strong demons appeared. He ordered them to bring the four guys to the headquater, too. They did what he wanted, grabbed the human beings and flew through the hole in the ceiling into the air. Then they flew through a large hole in the wall next to the main entrance and towards the headquarter of the demons, the Landmark City Mess Halls.

For one or two hours Axel, Lioness and Emily laid on the ground in the large hall. The sun rose quickly and the day came. Emily was asleep. She had cried until she fell asleep. Lioness crept over to Axel as fast as she could. She looked into his face. "Why didn´t you tell me before all this happened?", she asked quietly, she didn´t want to wake Emily.

Axel said nothing. Slowly he felt a heat coming up into his face. "Axel", she began gently and he looked at her. At once she forgot what she wanted to say. The look he gave her was full of fear. A fear was in him because he was afraid that she would tell him she didn´t love him. "I wanted-"

Suddenly the demons came back. They placed the free people in a row, even Emily, Axel and Lioness were grabbed and placed next to the others. Next to them stood their friends. "I have the antidote", whispered Garrett as the demons where for a moment busy with their master. Garrett sat on the ground as the only one and pointed at his pocket.

Lioness understood. But at the moment there was no chance to drink the antidote, Naran came over to them. "So, Axel Manning", he grinned and looked straight into Axel´s face.

"What´s up? Did you decide to use toothpaste?", he asked with sarcasm and his face turned serious. One of the demons behind Naran giggled a little, but as he noticed the hateful look Naran gave him he shutted up.

"No, something much better."

"What? Really? You´re using a toothbrush?!" Axel risked a lot with his comments, but Naran seemed to stay calm.

"Don´t challenge me, I would beat you everytime", said Naran.

"Of course, I´m tied up, my too silly master", replied Axel and Naran growled something.

"As I turned you into a demon I forgot to turn you into one without a mouth", said the demon who got angry now. "But I know what I´ll do with you for that you killed Celwin. And for your silly comments. What about a fight again? But this time we´ll make it more interesting. I will fight against you and some of your friends. You can choose five, just like you want. I will fight alone. And we´re fighting in the whole city. Of course you can´t escape, I´ll build a magical wall around the city and over it."

"Wow, the brave master decides to fight!", said Axel with played enthusiasm.

"And to make it a little more interesting...remember our bet two years ago. If you win this time I´ll let everyone go. But if you lose everyone´s soul is mine...and yours,too. Now, choose your team", ordered Naran.

Axel hesitated. He had no choice. Fighting was his only chance. Their only chance. "This is no question. Of course my four best friends, Lioness, King, Shark and Hawk. And...someone who would do everything to save her friends. I choose Emily, too", replied Axel. After he had chosen his team suddenly the energy ropes disappeared. They were free again.

"So, now you can go. In sixty minutes I´ll start my attack. And remember, you cannot escape!", said Naran and the six teens wanted to go. Before they left Lioness could take the antidote Garrett gave her without being seen. She put it into her pocket and followed her friends.

"Master", said one of the demons as the teens were gone. "Why did you let them go?"

"Because it´s much funnier to hunt your victims before you destroy them", replied Naran with a smile on his face and turned to the other prisoners. "You have to wait some time until I can take away your souls." And with this he ordered the other demons to bring the prisoners away. Everyone was scared and a lot of them shook on their whole body. Their only hope laid on the six friends now.

In front of the mess halls they decided to search a hiding place to make a plan. Lioness took Hawk´s hands and rose into the air, Shark flew together with King. Emily and Axel flew a little behind them. The whole time Emily stared at Axel. She was still totally in love with him, but hoped she could forget this. His friendship meant her a lot and she didn´t want to lose him.

After some minutes of flying they landed in front of an empty house and went in. They closed the door and looked around. They stood in the living room. There were two couchs, a small table, cupboards with books, an old tv and a radio. Dust laid on the furniture and through the dirty windows came not much light. But enough to see something.

Shark laid down on the couch and crossed his arms behind his head. Lioness sat down on an armchair, King, Hawk and Emily on another couch. Axel leaned against the wall and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"So guys, we have one hour. Any plans?", began King and broke the silence. He looked at everyone.

"Yeah, I have the antidote", said Lioness finally and showed the team a bottle with a darkblue liquid.

"Garrett told me you just have to drink some drops. So this antidote will be enough for all of us", mentioned Shark.

"Then we should drink it", guessed Emily.

"Wait!", interrupted Axel as she wanted to drink the liquid. "Don´t you think we should fight as demons and not as human beings? I mean we have some advantages, we can fly, have claws... Just to mention it. I don´t know, but as a demon you have more than a human being", he said.

"That´s right", added Hawk. "King and I can´t do as much as you can. Well, I can fly with my jetwings, but King...? I guess he´s a little too heavy to fly..." Hawk grinned a little, but stopped as he saw King´s angry face.

"We have no time for silly jokes", interrupted Lioness. "But Axel and Hawk are right. We must stay demons. I can see no other way."

"And how are we going to finish with this Naran dude?", asked Shark and rose his head to look at his friends.

"I have no idea...", said Axel quietly and stared at the ground. After some moments he walked over to the armchair where Lioness sat and sat down on the arm rest. She noticed his tail moved fore- and backwards, like always when he was in thoughts or nervous. This time he was both, deeply in thoughts and nervous because of her. Shark looked first at Lioness, then at Axel. He grinned a little, stood up, walked over to King and Hawk and whispered something to King.

He nodded, started grinning and stood up. He pulled Hawk up, too, and they went into the kitchen where they closed the kitchen door. Lioness and Axel looked confused at Shark, who stood next to Emily now. "King tries to find something to eat", he said shortly. Then he bowed shortly to Emily. Gently he took her hand and pulled her up. "Does such a beautiful girl like you want to come with me?", he asked. Emily blushed a little and nodded. They left, too, but went through another door to have a look at the house to find something useful.

"You see, Emily forgot you", smiled Lioness and looked at Axel who stared at the ground absent-minded.

"That´s good, isn´t it?", he gave back.

"You seem to be jealous now", she grinned.

"Why should I? I mean, I..." He stopped and listened. Only now he noticed some sounds behind the kitchen door. Quietly he stood up and walked over to it. As he opened the door King, Hawk and Shark fell onto the ground in front of Axel´s feet. They smiled embarassed. "Surprise!", said Hawk and grinned. Behind them stood Emily who shook her head and tried not to laugh.

"I wanted to stop them...but guys usually don´t listen", she said.

"I know what you mean", said Lioness and glanced at Axel. "They don´t listen to you, but listen at doors." Both girls started smiling.

"What did you expect to hear?", asked Axel and rose an eyebrow. The three stood up.

"Nothing", replied King and went into the kitchen again. There he found some cookies. "Hey, they still taste good!", he said smiling and began to eat all of the cookies. His friends looked in disgust at him.

"King, your disgusting!", said Hawk and took a step away from his friend. Somehow the others had to laugh.


	20. Fighting for Freedom

Fighting for Freedom

"Okay, any plan?", asked Axel and looked at his friends. They had still half an hour, but no plan by now. With a sigh he sat down on the couch next to Lioness. At once she noticed that his tail moved fore- and backwards all the time. She knew he loved her, because Emily had said this. And she believed her. Somehow she had to smile a little and leaned back in the couch.

"Well, let me see...We´re four demons and two human beings. Everyone of us is tired and scared, we have no real weapons, we can´t use magic...oh, and of course we´ll all die. Something I forgot?", asked Hawk with sarcasm and looked at everyone. "So then let´s come to Naran. He uses magic, can beat us all with just one wave of his hand, is at least two metres high, a full demon with claws, wings and a tail with a sharp thorn, he´s intelligent and wants to eat us. I guess this fight isn´t unfair..."

"I don´t say this very often, but Hawk is right", said King. "We have no chance."

"And what if...", began Emily. She thought for a moment. "What if Naran drinks the antidote? Shark, what did Garrett say about the antidote?"

"Ehm...It turns the demon blood into normal blood again or something like that-"

"Good, so that means if Naran drinks this, his blood will go away forever, so he disappears because he has no other blood then. He is a full demon."

"This could work...", said King. "But he won´t drink it voluntary."

"Then we have to force him!", said Axel and grinned. "Trust me, we´ll find a way."

In the next twenty minutes they all said nothing. King went back into the kitchen to find something to eat. He was still hungry. Hawk went into the bathroom to check his haircut for the last time. "I want to look good if I´m dying", he said offended as the others looked at him confused. And with this he left the room, went upstairs and closed the door of the bathroom.

Shark and Emily played poker with some cards they had found in a cupboard. To kill the time they decided to play a little. While Shark was winning Emily tried to understand the rules and some rounds later she nearly won.

Axel stood at the dirty window and looked out of it. There was an untidy garden, full of high grass and bushs. None took care of this garden, you could see that. The wind rustled in the leaves outside and the brown, yellow, red and blue sky looked even more dangerous than on any other day. Axel sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Silently Lioness walked over to him. Her heart beat faster as she looked into his worried face. She wanted to tell him her feelings. Now. But she was still afraid, she didn´t know why. She noticed his tail began to move fore- and backwards again. He showed his feelings for her that obvious that Lioness was confused why she hadn´t noticed it earlier. Lioness stood now close next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder.

For some moments they stood there, until it was a little too embarassing for Axel. It was embarassing for him that she knew about his feelings. As he wanted to walk away he suddenly stopped. Something pulled on his tail. He turned around and saw that his and Lioness´s tails were knotted. Quickly he knelt down, just like Lioness, to free their tails. Carefully they tried not to cut their hands with the sharp thorns.

As their hands touched for a moment they both looked up at each other. She blushed a little, but Axel didn´t notice this because he was too busy with the heat which came up into his head. As they were free again Axel quickly walked into the kitchen where King was.

"Are you still sad because he isn´t in love with you?", asked Shark Emily after Axel was gone.

But Emily shook her head. "Why should I? I forgot it and now we´re just good friends. Maybe I´ll find another one who loves me, too, in some time", she replied and smiled at Shark who blushed a little and smiled too.

"If you ask me he´s very shy", said Lioness and sat down on the couch.

Shark nodded and agreed. "He can fight with every dude, kicks and punches his enemies hardly and defeats them with his Jo-Lan. Ask him to fight against a hundred ninjas and he would do without being afraid. But if you want him to ask the girl of his dreams for a date he´s suddenly shy like a small child. It´s very interesting to watch this", smirked Shark and concentrated on their card game.

"You should tell him what you feel before we fight. Maybe some of us won´t survive this", said Emily to Lioness.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really think I´m that blind? You like him too, everyone sees that. And you should be lucky that he loves you too. Go and tell him", she said.

"You´re not angry, sad or jealous that I´m in love with him?", asked Lioness surprised. Emily just smiled.

"No, why should I? We´re just good friends now", she smiled and continued playing the card game.

Lioness decided to go to Axel, Hawk and King into the kitchen. Very quietly she opened the door, Axel talked with King while Hawk sat bored on the table and stared out of the window.

"...I mean, why is it so difficult? It´s not that easy that I´m going towards her and say _Hey, Lioness, I love you_!", he told King. While he said the last part of his sentence King noticed Lioness standing behind Axel and looking at them. He wanted Axel to stop talking and waved his hands. Axel was just confused and waited now for an answer of King.

"Why not? I guess it isn´t difficult to tell me that", said Lioness suddenly.

Axel winced as he heard her voice behind him. King buried his face in his right hand and shook his head. "Oh, ehm...hey, Li", said Axel, blushed totally and turned around. His heart hammered against his chest as he looked into her face.

"Err...Well, Hawk, I think we should join Shark and Emily and play a round poker", suggested King and pulled the protesting Hawk out of the room. Then he grinned at Axel, twinkled shortly and closed the door. Axel swallowed dryly.

"So, why didn´t you tell me earlier?", she began and looked into his eyes.

"I...was too afraid", he said after a long moment of silence. "Afraid that if you didn´t love me, too. And that our whole team could get broken because of this."

Instead of answering Lioness came closer to him. She clung her body to his and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back. Slowly she rose her head to kiss him, but suddenly the door opened and the others came in. At once the two sprang away from each other and blushed a little.

"Sorry to bother you, dudes, but we have just five minutes left", said Shark.

"Then let´s go and give the master of demons his antidote", grinned Axel and followed the others. Lioness waited some moments. She stood there in the kitchen and looked at the others leaving the house. They were sure to fight Naran now, and nothing would stop them trying to get free again. She smiled a little and followed them. On the street Hawk looked at his watch.

"Okay, we have just two minutes left. Any idea how we´re going to give him the antidote?", he asked and looked at everyone.

"Some of us try to get his attention while I´m giving him the antidote", replied Axel.

"Why do you want to do this job?", asked King.

"Why not?", he asked back.

"This is typically Axel. If it´s getting dangerous he wants to defeat his enemies alone to protect us. But he forgot that Naran is our enemy, too", whispered Lioness to Emily. "He´s very bullheaded."

Emily giggled as she looked at Axel and remembered Lioness´s words. She knew Lioness was totally right.

"Ten...nine...eight...guys, it´s getting serious", mentioned Hawk and looked at his watch.

"...three...two...one... time over." They all looked up. Suddenly a roar like the one of a very large and dangerous animal cut the silence and you could hear it everywhere in Landmark City.


	21. We're a Team

We´re a Team

"It begins", said King and broke the silence after the roar was gone.

"Or it ends here", said Axel and took a step forwards. Then he turned around to his friends. "I wanted to tell you that we´ve been a great team. And you were great friends. Thank you", he said. "Maybe this is the last time we fight together, so I´m telling you this now." He closed his eyes and lowed his head. As he felt a hand on his shoulder he looked up and saw Lioness standing next to him.

"Don´t worry, we´re a team, and we´ll make this", she smiled at him. He just stared at her, then he hugged her tightly. "Of course we will", he whispered into her ear and she smiled a little.

"Where is Naran? We´re standing here for at least two minutes and he could have find us normally", said Hawk and looked up at the sky.

"I´m here, you fools", said a dark voice behind them. They all whirled around and saw the blue-purple demon standing behind them. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest and his wings were folded. His tail moved slowly fore- and backwards. He grinned and his red eyes looked at the six teens.

"Then bring it on", said Lioness as she went into fighting position. The others did, too. In his hand Axel held the small bottle with the antidote. Now the only thing he had to do was giving Naran the antidote. And hoping their plan would work. His face went even more serious as he saw that the demon just smiled at them and shrugged his shoulders.

"If you want", he said and rose into the air. He formed a ball of fire with his hands and threw it towards the small group. King and Hawk jumped out of the way, the half demons rose into the air, too. Shark was the first one who attacked Naran. He flew towards the demon and kicked him into his stomach. But Naran just laughed and used his tail as a whip. He hit Shark´s back so that he fell onto the ground with a short scream.

Lioness came from behind and grabbed the demon´s wings so he couldn´t move them. Wildly moving he tried to get free and finally he spread his wings. Lioness fell back onto the ground, but before she hit the street King caught her just in time. Lioness flew up into the sky again. Next to Axel she stopped and watched King, Hawk, Shark and Emily trying to fight the emperor of the demons. He was much stronger than the teens, but they didn´t give up.

Naran suddenly roared, spread his wings and began to grow. He became much larger than before. He got bigger and bigger until he was nearly as big as a house. He grinned at the teens and tried to kick King and Hawk with his giantic feet. They could avoid his attacks very narrow.

"We´re too weak, he´s too powerful and too concentrated to be distracted", she said after a while. "I have an idea. Fly with the antidote towards him and then throw it to me. I´ll try to get his attention with this and then I throw it back to you. Meanwhile you´re close enough to his head to give him the antidote", she suggested. Then she looked at Axel who seemed to be absent-minded.

"This could work", he said shortly. As Lioness wanted to fly towards Naran he stopped her. "Hey...ehm...I just wanted to tell you...", he stopped and avoided her look. Then he let her hand go. "Be careful", he just said quietly.

Lioness understood what he had wanted to tell her. She smiled a little and pulled him quickly into a short, but lovely kiss. His eyes widened a little, but then he deepened the kiss and wrapped his arms around her. A wonderful feeling went through his body and he closed his eyes to enjoy their kiss. Lioness broke the kiss and looked deeply into his eyes. "Now let´s finish with this demon", she said and took the antidote.

With this she flew towards the demon. "Hey, you! Look what I have!" She showed him the bottle. He saw the liquid and just smiled.

"What do you want with this? Making me wet?", he laughed. Then his claws came out and he hit Lioness. She was sent against a wall, then she fell onto the ground. There she passed out. Dust rose as she fell onto the ground. Next to her landed the antidote, the bottle was still okay.

"Lioness!", shouted Axel, ducked under the tail of Naran and landed next to Lioness. Fortunately Naran was too busy with Axel´s friends, so that he had a moment time for Lioness to look what was up with her. He took her shoulders and shook her. "No, wake up!", he said desperated as he saw the green blood streaming down her body. Three long, deep scratches went along her whole body. She was seriously hurt.

She opened her eyes a little and looked weakly at Axel. "Li, come on, stay awake!", he said. He knew it was a wonder that Lioness was still alive. Her wounds were that deep that she lost a lot of blood in some minutes. As Lioness wanted to close her eyes again Axel shook her hardly. "Stay awake!", he nearly shouted with a hardly shaking voice. Maybe she could stay a little longer alive if she tried not to fall asleep.

"I can´t...", she whispered.

"You can, come on, I believe in you! But promise me you won´t fall asleep!", he said a little louder. Lioness didn´t seem to hear him, her look was very weak. She breathed heavily.

"Take...take the antidote and...defeat Naran...", she whispered. It cost her a lot of energy to speak.

"Sh...don´t speak", he whispered quietly and leaned her back against the wall. Lioness´s skin turned colder. He knew she was dying. Very slowly and painful. Axel took her hand and stroked some of her hair out of her face. "Please, don´t leave me", he said desperated and felt some tears coming into his eyes.

"I...love you...", she whispered more quietly than before and closed her eyes.

"Don´t leave me alone!", he nearly shouted again, his voice shook hardly now. But Lioness couldn´t hear him, she had closed her eyes. Forever. A hot tear ran down his face as he leaned his head against her shoulder. He closed his eyes and another tear ran down his cheek. He didn´t want to cry. But he did. It was the first time after his father´s disappearance that he cried. "Don´t leave me", he repeated whispering. "Please..." But he knew that Lioness was gone.

Moments later he heard a sound behind him and turned around. Naran grabbed Hawk and threw him against Shark. They fell onto the ground. Full of anger Axel took the bottle with the antidote. He looked one last time at Lioness, then he wiped the tears out of his face and his hands formed fists. His sadness was gone, and pure anger and hate came into him.

Axel rose into the air and flew towards the big demon. He came from behind, but ducked under an attack of the demon who whirled around. "Emily, get out of the way!", shouted Axel to Emily. She nodded and went to the ground to help Shark and Hawk who still laid ther in unconscious.

In front of Naran´s face Axel stopped and looked into the demon´s eyes. Axel was just as tall as one of Naran´s eyes. "Okay, guy, I´m stopping joking now. Everyone I loved is gone now, so that makes me a more serious enemy. An enemy who has nothing to lose is very dangerous you should know", he growled angry.

But Naran just started to laugh. Axel had waited for exactly this moment. His friends watched him shocked as he opened the bottle and flew into Naran´s mouth. Suddenly the demon stopped laughing and seemed to get sick. He held his belly and seemed to vomit every moment. Then he spat something out. This thing was Axel. He was sent against a wall and sank to the ground. As he tried to stand up he failed and landed on the ground again.

The emperor of the demons sank to his knees and still held his belly. Then he looked at Axel. "You!", he said. "I´ll curse you with the curse of the demons and fiends!" Naran really spat these words with pure hate. Then he suddenly became blurry, his body turned into grey smoke. This smoke rose into the sky and disappeared, the fiend was gone forever. Silver glowing balls flew into every direction and disappeared behind the corners of the houses.

Surprised Shark, Hawk, King and Emily ran towards Axel and helped him up. Shark looked at his friend in disgust. "Nice...demon **rotze**!", he said jokingly. Axel coughed hardly and stood up.

"Lioness!", he suddenly shouted and ran towards her. The others followed him. "Oh no...this is all my fault", he said as he knelt down next to her dead body. Green blood streamed down.

"Guys, look at this!", said King and looked at the sky. But Axel didn´t move. He still knelt next to Lioness and closed his eyes while his friends walked to the middle of the street to have a look a the changing sky. The sky´s color changed, from brown, yellow, red, blue and green to a friendly, lightblue color again. The second sun disappeared and just one of them shined brightly now. Like with magic the broken walls and houses built up again and looked like before.

"Hey, watch this!" Shark meant his wings. They began to turn into smoke and disappeared, just like his tail. His blue skin turned normal again and his hair became full blonde. Just like before. And Emily changed, too. Her wings, her tail and her blue-green skin disappeared. Her hair was blonde and she looked with her clear blue eyes at her new friends now. But with Axel nothing happened.

He was still next to Lioness, in form of a demon and cried quietly. Emily placed a hand on his shoulder. "I guess it´s because Naran cursed you", she said quietly. Axel didn´t reply. His whole body shook hardly.

"Come on, dude, let´s go home", said Shark quietly and together with King he tried to pull Axel up. But Axel pushed them away and with a red and wet face he looked furious at them.

"I won´t leave her!", he said. "How dare you say to go home and leave her behind here? How dare you say that? She´s our friend!" His voice shook hardly and tears ran down his face. Shocked the teens took a step backwards.

"But she´s dead...", said Hawk.

"Maybe she´s dead, but she was our friend. She didn´t deserve to be left behind!", snapped Axel back.

"No one said that we weill leave her here!", shouted Shark angry. Gently Emily took his hand to calm him down.

"But you thought of it!"

"It´s not that you think we would leave her here. You just cannot understand she´s dead!" King got angry, too.

"Of course, I understood very well. Everyone I have ever loved died and it was always my fault! Do you know something? I´m dead now, too." Axel´s voice was still shaking, but he didn´t shout.

Suddenly a hand placed on his shoulder and furiously he whirled around to look shocked into a familiar face.


	22. Normal Again

Normal Again

"Lioness! But that´s impossible!", he said.

"Now that Naran´s magic is gone, his tracks are, too. None is a demon anymore and the houses and buildings are normal again. Just like before he came. And the wounds he caused to me disappeared as he was gone, too", she explained and smiled. "Here, drink this", she said and threw a bottle with the antidote towards Axel. He caught it and drank the liquid.

For some moments nothing happened, but then the wings, the tail and his blue skin disappeared, his hair was darkbrown again. He looked just like before. "Much better", he smiled and looked on his back to make sure the wings were gone.

Lioness stood close in front of him and watched him smiling. "Why didn´t you tell me that you have another bottle of the antidote?", asked Axel and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Lioness shrugged her shoulders.

Then Axel went to her and she rose her head to kiss him. Before they could kiss he suddenly started to tickle her. "You´re unfair!", she screamed and laughed, her head turned red. She tried to get free, but Axel still tickled her and she had to laugh.

"Shall we help her?", asked Emily.

"Na...no, I guess they´ll make this on their own", grinned Shark.

"Guys, help me!", screamed Lioness, but her scream ended in laughter. Unfortunately Axel was not that much ticklish. She stopped screaming as he pressed his lips onto hers and kissed her lovely. She wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. The others watched the two grinning. "I guess now she doesn´t want any help", smirked King.

"Err...well...", began Shark as he wanted to talk to Emily. "Err...did I mention you have more beautiful eyes when you are human?" Emily totally blushed and leaned her head against Shark´s shoulder. She had accepted that Axel was in love with another one. It felt good for her that another one loved her now. So she was able to forget the pain from before.

Emily got enough courage and fell around Shark´s neck to kiss him. Surprised his eyes widened, but then he deepened the kiss and wrapped his arms around Emily.

In the next days life in Landmark City turned normal again. Everyone went to his job like every day. And everyone seemed to have forgotten the happenings, everyone exept Axel, King, Lioness, Hawk, Shark and Emily. Emily moved to the Aquatic Center, too, which appeared again after Naran was gone. Everything was like before, before the demons had come.

Moreover Emily got a job at Lee industries and was together with her new friends all the time. This was one thing for that she would thank Naran. He had turned her into a half demon, and then she got to know Axel. And with him she had won four other new friends. And meanwhile a boyfriend. Her life was much better than before, so the time as a demon had some positive sides.

END

**Okay guys, that's it! This story is finally finished! ) And I wanna dedicate it to Joanne, who read this story with a lot of enthusiasm! She also corrected my spelling and grammar mistakes, and I'm very thankful to her! Thanks a lot, dudette! ) I hope you all like this story! New ones are surely comin' sooner than you may think ;)**


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